Into a World of Darkness
by FieryPhoenixGirl119
Summary: AU! Inside pegasus' virtual world event Seto Kaiba meets a strange white priestess, deciding to team up with her, they must explore this twisted mythical world to save the worlds kids from the evil demon overlord Akuma
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **okay everyone, welcome to Into A World Of Darkness, this first chapter i wrote a few YEARS ago when I was very bad at this writing thing, where it leaves off here is when me and Fairylilly teamed up and it improves by 500 I promise, if you want you can skip this if you think it will discourage you from reading the rest of the story, oh and each border of : means that the POV is changing

"Well Noah, nice going, right when I start to think that there's no way you can possibly screw something else up, you go and do it"

"Well Noah, nice going, right when I start to think that there's no way you can possibly screw something else up, you go and do it"  
"I don't seem to understand what you are talking about, unlike you, I dont make mistakes, so it must have been something you did"  
"Noah, I dont have the password to your e-mail account, how the heck would I have gotten in and opened that e-mail with the virus in it?"  
"I dont know, but knowing you, you probably got jealous of my greatness to you and did something for payback"  
"Whatever, I have about 1200 computers to run anti-virus on, if you will excuse me" seto said, wanting so bad to give Noah a piece of his mind for that last comment.  
"You go do that, and while you're out, get me a latte"  
"Sure, in my spare time" he said, rolling his eyes as he walked out the office door.  
He had had enough with his step-brothers stupidity and lack of common sense. 2 months ago, he spilled coffee on a laptop that had just about all of the company's data on it, data, that in-fact, he had spent the past 3 straight days without sleep gathering; and now, he had opened an otherwise suspicious e-mail and know a killer virus was running through ever single computer hooked into the network.  
He finally got back to his station, only to have many angry employees, shoving work orders, requests, and laptops into your face. This was so not your day.  
xxxx

2 days later  
You let yourself fall back into your king-sized bed without any effort, you needed sleep, and those 16 cups of straight coffee weren't helping in the least.  
Then you heard a tone ring out from your personal computer, telling you that you had mail. The only thing that made you stand on your weary feet and check your mail was the simple fact that you had kept the number of people that knew your e-mail was at an extreme minimum.  
You selected the new message that had the subject: invite on it. This is what it read:  
Greetings seto,  
In gratitude to your most appreciated assistance with the programming of our software for the virtual technology a few years back, we are happy to invite you to come here to San Francisco with a friend, and be one of first to enter the virtual world in the grand initiation ceremony, if you agree to come, reservations and tickets are already reserved, just reply back to us. Remember, we will be honored to have your presence at the ceremony.  
M.Pegasus  
Ceo of Industrial Illusions.

Seto continued to think about it, there was no reason he really should not go, and besides, he had plenty of vacation time, and with what he saw from the programming of this game, he didn't want to miss it. Besides, it might teach that conceited step-brother of his to appreciate him more, though even that is unlikely. He smirked as he selected the 'reply' button at the top of the screen and sent back the message, confirming that he was coming. And he already chose who the 'friend' he was bringing with him was going to be.

Even across the globe, news of this assumed 'ultimate game' had leaked out (as it usually does) and there was a certain young CEO that was being pestered by her even younger sister about it.  
"C'mon Gwen, everyone I know is going to be there!"  
"We've been over this a million times lucky, I know you, and you're up to something"  
"Why are you always accusing me of being up to something?!"  
"Ugh, I don't know, maybe because you always are"  
"Hmph" lucky growled as she grabbed a magazine and plopped down on the couch in her sisters' office in the skyscraper.  
Then the phone rang.  
"Yes mr.keyman, I do have those prints right here" Gwen said into the receiver as she scrambled through all the papers, searching for those darn prints.  
Business as usual, that is, until he came in.  
"No mr.keyman, I won't sell you out to one of your rivals, you know me better than that" she tensed as she argued with the affiliate when Jason came over and stood behind her, holding her close to him.  
"yes, I will fax them right over to you, what was your number again-hold on a minute-Jason, knock it off!" she hissed at him as he kissed her up her neck, but when he didn't stop right off, she shoved her hand into his face, pushing him away. It worked.  
"don't worry then, I'll get them to you a.s.a.p, goodbye mr.keyman" she said as she hung up the phone and turned on her heels, ready to whack Jason with a nearby folder, though lucky kind of wanted to hand her the stapler, just to make it more fun.  
As Gwen turned around, Jason gently grabbed her by her shoulders and pulled her into a loose hug, then the mooching fest began all over gain.  
"Ugh, get a room you sickos" lucky yelled as she left the office, being sure to slam the door behind her.  
Jason only tightened his grip as Gwen groaned into his chest, trying to get some tension out.  
"Rough day?"  
"What would ever give you that idea?"  
"Wild guess"  
"ugh, let's see, I have 5 different corporations breathing down my neck for designs, I'm a month behind in paperwork, all thanks to your little vacation thing you talked me into, and to top it off, 'lucky the persistent' won't stop irritating the living crud out of me about letting her go to that stupid game that apparently 'everyone's' going into"  
"hmm, well, here's my idea, you tell those other corporations where to put it, you 'accidentally' shred those papers, and as for the orange-haired wonder, well, show her whose the boss, better yet, lock her in her room, it would give us more 'us' time"  
"Sounds tempting, especially the last one, but sadly, it's against the law"  
"I'll tell you what should be against the law, having to put up with the little terror, including during that banquet you're holding next week"  
"Don't remind me"

"Jeremy, are you okay?" Mr. Burns asked  
"Hmm? Oh ya, I'm fine" he said, looking up from his painting for the first time in about three hours.  
Well, everyone has already left, and I'm about to lock up the room"  
"Oh, sorry, I just lost track of time"  
"no need to apologize, you aren't he first pupil of mine to get caught up in thier own wonderous art, speaking of which, may I see what you've been working so tirelessly on?"  
"if you dont mind sir, I'd rather not, can I go home now?"  
"go ahead, I'm sure your parents are worried about you" mr.burns said, smiling warmly.  
"I wish" Jeremy mumbled as he ran down the schools halls and out the door.  
Jeremy sighed as he took the crumpled up picture in his hand and tossed it into the trash. Thats all it was. Trash.  
He shoved his hands into his sweaters pockets and walked on home, today had been as usual. Very bad.  
It wasn't humanly possible for this day to get any worse.  
boom  
Spoke too soon.  
The sky lit up with lightining as rain poured down, soaking him through his clothes.  
"Great, home's only 9 blocks away" he thought to himself, rolling his eyes; there just had to be something out to get him.  
He didn't bother running home, he had done that once, resulted in a skinned knee and twisted ankle. So walking was the unanimous choice.  
about 45 minutes later  
He had somehow made it home, with no blood or broken bones, that is.  
He grabbed the doorknob, locked.  
Lovely, just lovely.  
He tried some of the windows around the house, all the same, were locked. He went around the back of the house and grabbed onto a vine covered flower fence thing, never did catch the name of it. All he knew was that it led up to the roof, where his bedroom window was, now hopefully he hadn't been an idiot and locked it the last time he had used it.  
'I'm an idiot' he gave up as he tried pullign the window up, unsuccessfully. There was only one other option. Jake's room.  
Gotta do what you gotta do.  
You crawled your way on the slippery roof and wedged your fingers under the plastic of the window.  
Just my luck. Open.  
You lifted the window up and crawled, ok, more like slipped, in. you hit the floor with a thud, the plan was to get in, run like heck to your room, and hopefully, jake wont notice.  
"where have you been all this time?" asked a deeper voice in the room. You winced.  
"nowhere jake"  
"whatever" he said dissintrested, reading his magazine.  
You reached to open his door, ready to just get into your room, take a shower, and sleep the night away.  
"I wouldn't go in there if I were you" a warning voice said from the corner of the room.  
"why?"  
"a certain friend of yours is waiting for you"  
"groan what is he doing here?!"  
"mom and dad are on a business trip, and they hired him, ok, not really hired, he willingly volunteered, to babysit you"  
You winced at the thought, if there was open thing you didn't want, or need right now, it was cade messing with you.  
You looked back over your shoulder, there was only one way out of this.  
"what?"asked an annoyed jake when he sensed you staring at him.  
"fine, use my shower, but use any of my stuff in there and you are so dead"  
"fine, ok, jeez"  
Soon you were in the shower, sure it was quite a mess in there, but heck, who cared?  
Meanwhile, while you showered off, your brother was amusing himself by searching through your backpack.  
"hmm, books, soggy paper, homework-"  
"ever heard of privacy"  
"ever heard of being thankful I dont throw you to cade while our in a towel?!"  
You went silent for awhile.  
"well, thats the end of that" he said as he threw the magazine aside, just now noticing that you were still there.  
"now what"  
"jake, can i-"  
"whatever" he snorted, not really caring as you grabbed some of his clothes (they're baggy, but better than a towel)  
Then jakes cell rang.  
(phone conversation, might get confusing)  
"what do you wanted? Yes, for the umpteenth time, I'll be there, now I'm not standing you up, whatever, bye" he hung up.  
"where are you going?"  
"some virtual game thing the guys were going to, wont let me forget"  
"you're gonna leave me alone with that freak?!"  
"why not?"  
"jake" you strung out in a begging sort of way.  
"what, you want me to take a nothing like you just so you can get into the way? No."  
"but jake"  
Then one of those evil smirks came to him, you didn't know what it was for, but it couldn't be good.  
"how about this, if I take you, you must become my personal 'maid' for one year, which includes my chores, cleaning my room, and taking care of sid"  
You looked shakily over at sid, jakes pet scorpion, the thing was big, black, venomous, and just didn't like you, but it beat being with cade.  
"deal"  
You ended up sleeping in jakes room that night to avoid cade, you slept on the floor, that is, but it was worth it.  
Now only to survive the next several days.

It had been two weeks already, it had gone by slowly, but it was finally here, and 2 certain brothers were having a hard time getting to the airport to make it to their flight, the reason: evil alarm clocks.

"Mo, when we get back remind me to strangle you for not setting your alarm" seto said as he ran out the doors of the mansion to the waiting car.

"Hey, its not my fault, someone here just couldn't keep himself from fixing that one last laptop last night that took three hours"

"Look who's talking, I told you to pack last night while I was working but did you listen? No."

"Oh shut up and lets get going" mokuba said as he jumped into the vehicle, trying to change the subject before the blame fell on him.

2 hrs. Later

"seto, why did you bring me along on this thing anyway? Dont get me wrong, I'm happy to go, but the scenery at this point in kind of crappy" mokuba said with his arms crossed, looking out the hummer's window, staring at the encouraging sight of dead-stopped traffic."

"Would you rather spend the next three weeks alone with Noah? I'm sure he would have found lots for you to do around there"

"Hmph, do I have to answer? I remember what happened last time, he had me doing paperwork that he should have been doing, I still have writer's cramp from that"

"Ha-ha" seto mocked.

"Oh be quiet, the airports not that far away"

about 45 min later

"As you were saying about the airport?"

"Oh shut up, were almost to the garages"

By the time they found one of those confounded parking spaces, grabbed their bags, got into the actual airport building, and made it the counter, they made it just in time.

To be too late.

"And there goes our flight" mokuba said as he watched the large plane taking off into the rising sun.

"Just for the record, I'm blaming you"

Mokuba was about to open his mouth to protest, but a large man dressed in black, kind of like a security guard, walked up to them.

"Are you two those kids master Pegasus wanted?"

"Who wants to know?"

"I have special orders form him, you two will be taken on his private jet"

And with that, they were walked to an empty part of the airport, and taken to the craft.

"Not bad, considering that we missed our flight and all"

"Hmph"

It was then that they felt the jet begin to start to take off, and within seconds, they were airborne.

Looks like things had worked out, and now they were both headed straight for San Francisco, sure it was probably an all-day flight, but that wasn't so bad, was it?

oh great, several hours of not being able to move...this oughta be fun

Lucky stood at the door of her bedroom, her stomach doing flips. She had never gone against her sisters rules, and now, not only was she sneaking out of the place she called home, but it was the fact that she knew she would never return here again. A little drastic she knew, but she knew herself all too well, and she knew that once her and her older brother were reunited, there would be no separating them ever again, the only reason Gwen had been able to get them apart in the first place was because both she and Ty were asleep, and Gwen took her chance and grabbed Lucky and took her away with her, all lucky herself remembered was waking up in a strange place, on an entirely different continent than that of her brother.

She shook herself out of the memory, if her plan were to work, she would have to leave now, before the maids made their usual rounds and checked up on her, and the fact that she was missing would be known.

She crept down the stairs, being careful of every noise she made, there was no room for mistakes in this, and no room for wasted time either, so her multi-tasking skills were tested as she made her way to the huge double doors of the mansion.

She turned the doorknob slightly, planning on only opening the door barely enough for her to squeeze through, as she cracked it open, she could fell the cold air hit her face, this was it, she was going to make it out of this prison and into her brother's arms.

bam

"going somewhere?" asked a deeper voice that lucky had come to hate, his hand pressed up higher on the door, shutting it right in her face.

"Well not anymore" she replied as she turned around and trodded up the stairs again.

"Oh come on Luck, you wouldnt have gotten far anyway, how were you planning on getting pass the locked gates? And even if you did, by the time you got past them, Gwen would have figured out your little plan and you would be back in here, again, just give up"

"And how would an 'intelligent' creature like yourself go about getting out of here?" she mocked.

"Ha-ha, nice try, up the stairs, now"

"One of these days, I'll make it out, and then I will be able to shove it in your face that even you couldnt stop me"

"That'll be the day"

So, her plan failed and she was back at square one, well, maybe we would have to try something a bit unexpected?

"And where do you think you're going?" he demanded when she turned down the wrong hall that lead straight to Gwen's room, she didn't even answer him as she went straight into her room and closed the door behind herself.

She walked straight into the room, were Gwen was.

Was sleeping, that is.

"Rise and shine, its a beautiful morning" lucky chanted as she pulled the curtains open, not even noticing the fact that is now raining.

"If that's your idea of beautiful, I'd hate to see your glamorous" Gwen moaned as she turned around, trying to get back to sleep.

"Gwen, you cant get back to sleep, you have to go in today" lucky said cheerily, as she pounced on the bed, trying to play it normal.

"No, I cant get back to sleep because of your bouncing" she murmured while covering her head with a pillow.

"You'll thank me later"

"Much later"

"Oh come on, dont be that way, you know you are just dying to get into that office and get started on that mountain of paperwork"

"That's it; you are officially out of my will"

"Promise?"

"Har-har-har, now get up, I need to get going"

Nothing like some good old sarcasm to get Gwen awake in the morning.

It wasn't long before the three of you were in the limo, on your way to the imposing skyscraper.

She was determined to get her chance, she would make it out, and better yet, Gwen would approve of it, all she had to do was wait for the right moment...

Jeremy's eyes slowly opened as his sleep was disturbed, it took him a moment to come to his full senses, it was then that he realized that someone was picking him up, he couldn't tell who it was, everything seemed blurry from the sleep still being in his eyes. But it only took a moment to register that who it was holding him wasn't his biggest current concern.

He couldn't breathe.

His natural reaction took over and he gasped for precious air, making him jolt in the arms of whoever it was still holding him. He could hear a deep noise around him, a constant ringing type of noise he couldn't tell what it was or what it meant, all his mind was processing was that he had no air, and it was sending his system into a panic. All the noises he heard now were all muffled, and the bright lights all around him were going by quickly. His head leaned to the side as he lost energy and strength fighting for life and all the colors around him began to swirl, his chest and body were greatly exhausted by the struggle for air, and a strange feeling behind his eyes came, a hard, stinging feeling, and with it came his vision dimming from all around, until he felt it all, the panic in his mind, the pain all over his body, the crushed feeling of his head, it all faded away, as his body made one last desperate gasp for oxygen before it gave up, what will happen to him now is no longer in his own hands.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x+x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

small black eyes opened quickly as Jeremy felt himself awaking, he was laying on his back, his limbs stretched out to their extent, he leaned forward to find himself in a place known only in that of movies or fiction books.

The sky was a dark, gloomy gray, there was no sign of life anywhere he looked, a few dead, shriveled up trees here and there, but everything about this place screamed 'death', he stood up straight and looked around, nothing there, no one anywhere. There was a slight breeze blowing through, but it went nearly unnoticed by the boy. He could feel his heart skipping beats as his eyes continued to search the barren land.

He was at a lost as to what to do, until he saw something over the next hill.

Dust rising.

And lots of it. Something, or someone, was coming at him, and coming fast, he turned to run but was jerked back by an unknown force as the field that had been right there was suddenly gone, leaving in its place a gaping hole, a great, deep hole, stretching as far as he could see to his left and right. He made the mistake of panicking, feeling his breath quicken and he heard himself begin to make a strangled wheezing noise, the lightheaded feeling coming to him. he tried to do what the doctors said to do to help when he was having an attack and lay down flat, but when he leaned back, he felt something grab him, keeping him from moving, he looked up and saw a familiar face staring back down at him, his eyes becoming wide when he saw him.

"c-cade?"

Cade made a grimace before pulling Jeremy up by his neck and pushing him over the edge of the abyss

The feeling of falling and suffocating a the same time was too much, he freaked out, and as it all seemed to real, it was over in less than a split second.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x+x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"he's waking up" Jeremy heard a nearby voice comment as the child opened his weary eyes, glancing around, the brightness of the white walls stinging his eyes.

"everything seems to be in check, be sure and give his guardians his prescriptions, and as for you" the doctor raised his voice, directing his attention at Jeremy directly.

"you keep track of your inhaler better, we almost lost you there for a moment, go ahead and tell his visitors that they can come see him, he can go ahead and go home tonight"

The black haired boy nodded slightly, tilting his head forward to let the nurse take the breathing mask off.

'who would be here to see me?' Jeremy asked himself

'mom and dad are out of town and Jake hates hospitals, that leaves- oh no'

"Jeremy, are you ok?" a male voice asked with concern.

"I'm ok Cade, please, can I just go home?"

"of course, I'll go and sign the papers and we'll be on our way" the man said smiling gently and he rubbed Jeremy's hand, personally, Jeremy hated any contact whatsoever with Cade, but as of right now, he was his only way home, and he decided to go along with it until he got there so he could go lock himself in his room or something until morning.

The drugs they had put him on to ease the pain on his chest, but left him quite out-of-it, he didn't recall details of going home at all, all he vaguely remembered was loud voices arguing, being carried upstairs in his room, and falling asleep soon after.

"Are we there yet?" the youngest of the Kaiba brothers asked as Seto and he rode through the streets of the city in a private escort limo.

"For the forty-third time mokuba, 'N'-'O', no"

"But we've been driving for forever"

"Its only been fifteen minutes since we left the airport, just relax and take a handful of chill pills already, we will get there soon enough"

Mokuba crossed his arms and grunted at his older brother, this was suppose to be an unforgettable event for all major gamers everywhere and all Seto could tell him was to 'chill'? How irritating.

Finally they turned a corner into a gated area where a huge building with the words Industrial Illusions Gaming World Headquarters in large neon lights on the top. After a security check the limo was let in and it made its way to a mostly full parking garage.

"here, you're going to need this" Seto commented as he tossed a piece of plastic with a cord wrapped tightly around it at Mokuba, he unwrapped it and hung the guest I.D card around his neck, it had the company logo and a barcode on it for opening doors and whatnot.

The driver popped the truck so that his passengers could get their luggage and other belongings, as he checked his car over and wrote out a form with gas mileage and other things for company policy purposes.

"now mokuba, remember, there are some pretty weird people who will be here that helped work on this thing, and by weird, and mean geeks, so whatever you do, dont bring up and kind of comic character or I can guarantee you that one of them will give you an incredibly long and supernaturally boring lecture on the history of that entire series, and if you get caught in any dull situation, just take your camera out and take a picture, the flash will stun them long enough for you to make a clean getaway" he said dryly as he draped his pack over his shoulder as Mokuba giggled at the comment.

"anyone in particular I should look out for?" he asked as he took his luggage out of the trunk as well.

"well, there's this one guy with curly hair and thick rimmed glasses, Donny, hes nice and all but the warning is doubled when it comes to the comic book thing, and then theres Neal, tall toothpick with a wiry sense of humor to match, now, who am I forgetting?-"

"HEY GUYS LOOK WHOS FINALLY SHOWED UP, ITS THE GOTH BOY!" a male voice shouted behind them suddenly and didnt give enough warning before Seto was practically tackled by 3 other guys, 2 of which fit the older brothers description of them.

"human-contact" Seto's eye twitched as he struggled to stand with their weight on him

"hey. Check it out, its a little dude, aren't you gonna introduce us gothy?" Neal asked as he tried to keep seto in a playful choke hold but failed to do so.

"ok, 1) call my 'gothy' or 'goth boy' ever again and I will kill you, use my powers as a genius to bring you back, then kill you again, 2) thats Mokuba, my brother"

"ah, well, nice to meet you little dude, I'm Neal, and this is Donny Donny waves and says hi, and this is Toby Toby does the same, so, did you guys just get here or what?"

"ya, we just were getting our stuff out of the car" Mokuba answered them, Seto standing behind him being his more unsocial self.

"well then, I guess were gonna have to give you the grand tour, weve been here for days now, and everyones all pumped up over the event, come on, well go introduce you to everyone, I know it will help you in your in-game challenges to know some Gamesters" Neal explained as he grabbed the youngest Kaiba's hand and walked off with him, Donny following and Toby staying behind with Seto to talk about technical matters with some computers they were having trouble with.

(-.-)(-.-)(-.-)(-.-) Kirby dance :D

Neal opened the door to a large room, filled with people, computers, and tables of food and snacks for all of them.

"these are all the people who helped design and make this happen, some will be out here monitoring the systems while some of us are reporting how things are going inside the actual virtual world" Mokuba nodded as he looked around, some of these pc's were on tables, desks, even some laptops on the floor could be seen, wires everywhere and the electrical outlets were all full.

Neal turned out and led Mokuba to another room down the hall, this one was mostly empty and filled with clay statues and pictures, sketches, paints, and many, many other supplies.

"this is where the gifted artists brought their imaginations into physical being, there, I think theres a painting your brother did, with a model to match, ya, there it is, over there" he said pointing over to the left, Mokuba walked over and looked at it, the painting was of a troll-like creature, the detail seemed so real like as of it was about to jump out at you, and the sculpture was of the same troll, in the same pose, holding a spear-like weapon that even had the detail of tribal looking art on it, so, this was what Seto defined as nothing much when he had asked him about what all he had done? Figures.

"WILL ALL THE GAMESTERS AND THEIR GUESTS PLEASE MAKE THEIR WAY TO THE MAIN CONFERENCE ROOM, MASTER PEGASUS IS WAITIGN THERE WITH AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT, THAT IS ALL" came over the intercom in a loud, booming voice.

"That's our cue, c'mon, I'll help you find your brother and we can all head there together" Neal said smiling as he walked down the hall back to the room with all the people in it.

"So, you get the grand tour?" Donny asked as he slipped his laptop into his bag and exited the room.

"yep, where's seto?"

"I think he and Toby already went to the conference room, so, the old man has something to say huh? By the way, if he mentions something about a power surge, I swear it wasn't me"

The group all headed down the long hallway together and entered the elevator, Neal pressing the button for the 42nd floor.

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

"ok all, as mentioned before I have a little announcement, due to some remarkable work by our gifted technicians, the virtual world is now up and running!"

everyone cheers

"and to make things better, the pods are now ready to start porting people to our creation, so the main question here is, WHO WANTS TO GO IN FIRST?!" Pegasus yelled the last part, all of the 'gamesters' cheering and howling, all wanting to go a.s.a.p.

about an hour later

The remarkably huge warehouse that all the gamesters that had wanted to go in the virtual world were taken to was, like mentioned before, huge, these sci-fi looking machines lined every wall that didn't have advanced computers crowding it, literally, there were hundreds of these things, and now they were being opened and a person was entering each one. Some of the gamesters had signed their names on their chosen pods, Mokuba noticed some even signing each others.

"you ready Mokuba?" Seto asked as he activated two pods near the rear of the warehouse, making sure he and Mokuba were next to each other. The glass tops opened and he sat himself inside, his little brother following suit.

"Seto, are you sure these are safe?" he asked, now that it was all happening, all his excitement had turned to unease.

"would I ever make you do anything I ever thought wasn't totally and completely harmless?"

"true" he said before lights started flickering and changing colours, smoke blowing out for a dramatic effect, the lids to the pods all closing at the same time, it was like being in a movie, it was like nothing he had ever seen or been through.

Heck, it was just plain awesome.

Lucky looked up at the clock on the wall in her sister's office, 8:27, the doors to the New York gaming center open at 9, not much time to trick Gwen into letting you go, but perhaps you wouldn't need to do anything, the day will play itself out, and everything will work out fine?

Doubt it.

You had to do something and you had to do it now. You stood from the chair you had been sitting sideways in and walked out the office door.

"Where you headed?" your older sister asked, not raising her head form her laptop and papers.

"Like you care"

"Of course I care what happens to you lucky" she said in a 'responsible-adult-like-voice'

"I took a pretty large insurance policy out on you so if I should stop making payments be sure and give me a heads up, k?" she joked, now we all know where Lucky got her sense of sarcasm from.

"har-har-har, I'll be on the roof" lucky closed the door after her, she wasn't in a mood to come up with snappy comments today, she was headed to the roof alright, basically because that's where she got her best cell phone reception, and there was a certain meeting her 'loving' older sister had with some board executives she was about to move up a few hours, that oughta keep Gwen busy.

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

The cruel deed done, she made her way to the snack machine and swiped her id card in front of the scanner, pressing D5 and B7 for some snickers and a bag of cheese-its, she would need a good energy boost to go through with her plan, it involved her having to run really far, really fast, and by far I mean about half a mile from where Modern Designs HQ was located and by fast I mean fast enough that Gwen didn't see you leave and Jason wasn't around to try and stop you, speaking of which, where is he-

Lucky opens door to Gwen's office and shuts it quickly seeing what is happening inside

"Found him" she made her way to the employees break room, taking her precious time to walk down the hall and eat her snacks simultaneously, muttering something about the image being burnt into her mind forever and how her gag reflex was officially exercised.

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

'3-2-1- and cue the CEO' lucky thought mentally, standing near the door to the main office, staring at her watch, no sooner had she finished that Gwen came running out of the room, she had apparently just gotten the message about the surprise meeting she had arranged (for the record, Lucky can do a very good imitation of the secretary, it was easy to fool them) and was running for the conference room in high heels, might I add Jason peeking his head out of the door, his hair a mess and shirt all wrinkly.

Ick.

With that part of her diabolical plan done, now it was time to go downstairs, make it through those front doors, avoid all cameras, and run like heck. But first, time to play dumb with a dummy.

"Where do you think you're going brat?" Jason ordered, very pissed that his and Gwen's spit-swapping session was rudely interrupted.

"Down to get a smoothie, my god, don't you have something better to do than irritate me all the time?!"

"Nope, and don't even think about making an escape plan, I know, and all the guards know not to let you go anywhere to that stupid game event"

"And if I don't heed your warning?"

"I have your ipod held hostage, and its pretty long drop from the roof to the very hard street."

"Whatever, I'll be back later, don't hold your breath, then again, on second thought, hold your breath" she yelled back, slamming the door behind her.

"I hope she chokes on the straw and suffocates so I can dance on her grave", he muttered, fingering the ipod in his hand.

She went down to the bottom floor, where the smoothie machine was (what can I say, there's lots of those machines around the building, lucky had a lot to do with that)

But instead of turning left to the room, she made a sharp right, to the parking garage.

Hiding form the cameras was easy, just duck and swerve behind a few cars and she was almost home free, and when the exit was in sight, all the cameras, cars, smoothies, guards, sister's and their boyfriends behind her, she made a run for it-

-and got caught by the arm by a hidden guard.

sigh" ok, fine, you got me"

"Ms. Rightbane, where were you going that you would be that careful to sneak around like that? It's been a fun 5 minutes following you, but still, I want to know."

She knew that voice; it belonged to Mark Brenton, a long-time employee of Modern Designs, as well as a long-time friend of the family.

Lucky kept her head down, suddenly she was ashamed, not that she was going to disobey a clear order from Gwen, but that she got caught, and by Mark Brenton?! Of all people?! The same Mark Brenton that trips over his own feet- constantly-; the same Mark Brenton that got into a fight with a soda machine, and lost; the same Mark Brenton that- oh forget it.

Lucky keeping her head down for so long gave him all the answer he needed, he felt bad for lucky, she had told him about her plan over a month ago, when she bet he wasn't listening, but he had been, he knew it was cruel of Gwen to keep her and her brother apart, its been over a year for the love of God! He took in a deep breath and exhaled it loudly, what he was about to do would probably get him fired, but this was Lucky, he had known her for years, and deep inside his heart, he knew it was right.

"Go on"

"What?!"

"Go on, get oughta here, scat, it's 8:52, you'll need to run fast to make it there in time"

"But why-"

"Don't know really, was hoping that deep inside that active and very imaginative mind of yours you would know"

"Mr.Brenton, there's only 3 things I know right now, 1) I'm SO happy we're friends, 2) I can't thank you enough." She said in a cute voice before running off.

"I thought you said there were 3 things?" he yelled after her

"there are, but you'll figure it out later" she answered him, not slowing her pace as she ran for the center, a smile gracing her lips as she ran on, the 3rd thing making her laugh on the inside.

'I don't have an ipod, but Gwen does'

"so, today is the day the event starts" Jeremy commented as he put the new sand in Jake's scorpion's freshly cleaned cage, Jake himself laying on his bed, reading some magazine.

"Umhmm" Jake fingered through the paper, he wasn't really paying all that much attention to Jeremy, heck, if it wasn't for the fact that he was doing his chores for him he would leave the brat here for Cade to do with as he pleased.

Jeremy carefully opened the plastic lid on the container holding Venom (scorpion's name, corny I know) and tipped it gently, allowing the small arachnid (yes, scorpions are apart of the arachnid family, I had a test in biology on it) into his glass tank to bask in the heat light and kill some unfortunate critter for his dinner. The younger brother left the room, sliding the gloves off his hands and tossing them into the dirty clothes hamper, time for shower, school, then if all went well, to the gaming center. He quickly made his way into the shower, the water waking him up fully. Usually he would enjoy this but he couldn't shake a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach that made his insides turn, that made him shiver under the hot water, the feeling that he was being watched.

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

"JEREMY, YOU HAVE 15 SECONDS TO GET DOWN HERE BEFORE YOUR BUS LEAVES" his mother called, she herself grabbing her briefcase to go off to work, Jeremy ran down the stairs and made for the door.

"Forgetting something?" she asked, sipping her coffee.

"My backpack, I'll get it" he ran back up the stairs, meeting Jake (who shoved him hard into the wall as he passed by, just to be irritating) halfway up. It was a busy day, dad was gone on military duty, and mom was going to a realtor's conference downtown and would be gone for awhile, possibly overnight. The boy grabbed his yellow backpack that was by the door and ran back down the stairs.

"Bye mom!" he yelled as he headed straight for the door

"You missed your bus"

"I'll walk"

"Better run or you'll be late"

"Fine mom, I'll see you later"

"and remember, all important numbers are on the fridge and Cade will be around if you need anything" she said planting a kiss on his head before letting him go to run to school, a disgusted look on his face, and believe me, it wasn't because of the kiss either.

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

"let's see, I get stuck doing Jake's chores, take too long in the shower, late too school, AND it smells like someone's been burning their trash out here or something, things can't possibly get any worse' Jeremy thought to himself as he ran down the street, some black smoke layered all around, making it hard to breathe for normal people, and nearly impossible for someone with asthma, like him, for instance. He pulled his backpack off his shoulder and dug into it for his inhaler so he could breathe well again, but amongst all the papers, pens, and very heavy books all crammed into it, he couldn't find it. The school was only a block or 2 away, he could make it, let's just hope that today wasn't Wednesday, aka, run-laps-around-the-field-in-95-degree-geat-for-coach-day.

2 hrs later

Ever have one of those days where you want to take a picture and say: this totally cannot be happening? Well, Jeremy was having one of those days, let's see, it's Wednesday, its 99 degrees outside, the water/refreshment machine is out of order, and its the last day of school (good thing) and all the other kids, in their excitement, really pissed off coach today (bad thing, really bad thing) so now it was his turn to take it out on this new bunch of kids, so for a 'end of school celebration' thing, 15 laps, around the track field, loser does 100 push-ups.

Guess who lost?

X-x-x-x-x x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

Fifteen..gasp for air

Sixteengrasp for air

Seven- collapses on the hot cement

"oh come on you little woose, get back up and start over, this time, to one hundred and fifty, now move it!" coach yelled, blowing his whistle in a high pitch at the end.

"Coach, please, I lost my inhaler and I can hardly breath, can't you go easy on me, you know, like let me off this once, or better yet drive a dagger through my head?"

"Let's see you use that energy used for working your smart little mouth into doing pushups until school lets out, plus detention time!"

"Coach Kentmore!" a lady dressed in a dark blue suit said in an angry voice, stepping right up to the coach and Jeremy, the later of which was still laid out on the ground, eyes closed and panting.

"Please explain why you are out here with only one pupil in this blazing heat while everyone else is inside?!"

"Well ma'am, he is too lazy to finish the course in the required time, so he has to pay"

"Nonsense, little boy, get inside and get a drink from the cafeteria, I'm sure your teacher is wondering where you are, I'm going to have a little chat with FORMER coach Kentmore" her voice was serious, even Kentmore flinched, but Jeremy stayed right where he was, but the two adults didn't notice.

"Honestly Brutice, I don't know where you get your terrible attitude towards children and why you think that they are just little animals that you can push around"

"in my defense, one, they are small little animals, monsters really, and two, if you like the little runts so much, why don't you go and try to make them run track or play dodge ball, they're so whiney, 'it hurts', 'I don't feel good' well you know what! I'm sick of it!"

"You will not raise your voice at me Brutice Kent- hey, little boy, I said you could go already" your voice dropping a few decibels when she realized that Jeremy was still there.

But no response was given from him.

"Little boy?" she asked again, this time tapping his shoulder, when no noise or response came, she rolled him over.

"Oh my god, he passed out!"

"Pathetic little-"

"KENTMORE!" the principal leaned him up with one hand while dialing for the school nurse on her cell with another.

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

He woke up with a head-splitting headache and weird feeling skin. There was an ice-pack on his head and someone had taken his shoes off.

"Ah, you're awake, how are you feeling" a nice-looking lady with brown hair in a bun and a nurse I.D tag on her shirt.

"My head hurts" Jeremy said as his voice caught, holding his hand to his head.

"Here, take these pills, they will help your head" she handed him a small cup with 2 tablets in it and another cup with nice cold filtered water in it. He took the water then the medicine, laying back down afterwards, the papers beneath him making a weird crunching sound.

"Do we need to call your house?"

"Uh, no, no, definitely not, umm, can I just go back to class?"

"Wait for the meds to kick in and then you can go, but please, take it easy, I saw your record and you had a bad attack recently, it seems you keep on misplacing your inhaler?"

"Yes, I'm sorry, I don't know why it keeps happening; I just..lose it"

"Well I don't care if you tie it around your neck, you don't ever lose it again, you hear?"

"Yes ma'am"

"Good, now scoot, it's 4:30 and I bet you're missing some celebration cake" she said with a smile, opening the door for him.

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

On further inspection of his backpack on his walk home, he found that his inhaler wasn't even there, and he distinctively remembered putting it in there last night.

"Where could it have gone?" he asked himself as he opened the front door and went up the stairs, arm still shuffling through his bag.

"Looking for something?" a deep, older males voice asked that made Jeremy's eyes go wide.

"Cade?" he looked up, and beholds, Cade was standing propped up against the wall, the inhaler grasped in his bigger hand.

"Cade, why did you take it, I passed out today, something seriously could have happened!?"

"Oh chill out, you know I wouldn't hurt you on purpose" Cade walked up to Jeremy, until he had him pinned against the wall.

"I could never hurt you, my love" he whispered into Jeremy's ear, whose eyes were darting from side to side, trying to find some sort of escape or excuse from this.

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

"Hey, Jake's here" a teen with baggy everything and hair covering his eyes said in a low, flat voice.

Jake parked his motor bike on the curb, getting off as his girlfriend Sydney came up to him, wrapping her arms around him as they shared a long, deep kiss.

"So, we all ready to go or what? I wanna get in line before the crowds show up" Blake grabbed up his skateboard and motioned toward the large building across the street.

The gaming center.

"You have my pass right sweety?" Sydney asked, snuggling her face into his neck, Blake standing nearby making gag hand signs.

"Of course" he pulled a few small papers out of his back pocket.

"One for you, one for me, and the last is for- Jeremy" he disregarded it and seemed as though he would throw it away like useless trash without a second thought.

"Jakey, we can't go without him, aren't you supposed to be watching him?" she asked, pulling away from Jake and giving him the look.

"Technically no, Cade's there with him, he'll be fine"

"Jeremy? Alone with Cade? I wouldn't trust him to keep his hands off a poisonous reptile if it meant he could get a rush out of it, and didn't you say you made some sort of deal with your brother about it? Something to do with your chores?" her hands on her hips.

"Oh please, can we just forget about it and go to enjoy ourselves?"

Sydney glares at him

"okay, fine, sheesh, I'll go get him"

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

Cade had Jeremy's arms pinned and had his other hand under his shirt, lightly touching his fingertips to the child's skin.

"C-cade, stop, please, I have to go somewhere, just let me go"

He got his answer when Cade wrapped his other arm around Jeremy's waist, bringing their bodies closer.

But it was all cut short -thank god- when the front door slammed open and the Smith-middle-child was heard yelling up the stairs.

"JEREMY GET YOUR BUTT DOWN HERE NOW!!"

Cade covered Jeremy's mouth with one hand to try and fool Jake, but he knew better.

"AND CADE I SWEAR IF YOUR HOLDING HIM BACK I WILL COME UP THERE AND KICK YOUR-"

Jeremy struggled away from Cade and flew down the staircase, past Jake and out the door, glad to be out of there, as soon as Jake got back he had his helmet on and they were riding at top speed to town, about a half-an-hour later, they were all on their way, their passes being checked by the workers and their pods being readied.

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-back at the house-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

Cade was in a foul mood he had been so close and it had been snatched away at the last moment. He slammed his fist into the dresser, the towers of papers and old homework flying everywhere. His anger venting out, he finally calmed down enough to realize that he'd might as well clean up the mess he had made. As he stacked the scattered papers back on their spot on the desk, he noticed a paper with some sort of advertisement that caught his eye.

It was the poster for the Gaming event.

An evil Glint was in his eye as he realized how this was where they had gone and how he was going to get his love back to him, and this time, no one could so rudely interrupt him.

A flash of light and the feel of a soft breeze on his arm signalled that they had been successfully teleported into the virtual world. Mokuba looked around at the vast scenery in-front of him, his eyes wide in awe; it all looked so real, heck, what he was thinking, it was real.

"The graphics team really knew what they were doing" Seto commented, he also was taking a moment to take it all in.

"Well, enough of that" Seto turned around and began walking in an opposite direction, sticking an earpiece in his ear.

"Wha? Wait, what's that?" mokuba inquired, catching up to his older brother

"Lets me talk to the people on the outside, tell them if there are in problems here"

"Problems, what kind of problems?"

"Well things in the game not doing their job, like birds flying without flapping their wings, stuff being out of place, that sort of stuff"

"Ah"

Seto took a small object out of his pocket and pressed the air in front of him, and a screen opened up out of nowhere, normally this kind of stuff would cause anyone's jaw to drop, but virtual world, anything can happen right?

"now to get into some real armor and we can start exploring this world in style" Seto touched numerous screens, each responding to his fingers, and with a few taps later, a flash of bright yellow-ish light surrounded Seto, and when it subsided, he was wearing completely different (other than it being dark-colored) clothing, like something out of a ninja movie, and a little green bar on the screen came up on the virtual screen.

"What's that?" mokuba asked pointing to the green bar.

"Health points, the better armor you have the more you get"

"Oh, I see"

"I'll get you your change soon enough, but first I need to go check some things first" he said as he started walking into a shadowy place, it was only then that they had walked straight up to a jungle where they had been on an open plain only minutes before; the sounds of birds and wild animals screaming loud into the morning sky.

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

The pods had just begun their closing phase when Gwen and Jason ran into the gaming center.

"I CANNOT BELIEVE you let her just get by you!" Gwen was furious, looking for her orange-haired sister by sweeping her eyes over the room. "And you owe me a new Ipod!!"

"it's not my fault the brat gets crafty little ideas and schemes, she takes on after you" Gwen didn't even bother glaring at him, she had to find Lucky before the event started, finally she saw a familiar face inside of a pod.

"You!" Gwen yelled at a worker there

"Get her out of this right now!"

"I'm sorry ma'am, but we can't, once they're in there they're in for a good couple of hours"

"Grah! There's no time for that!"

"Well, as far as I can see there's only one way to go about this Gwen" Jason had come up with one of his rare good ideas.

"instead of taking her out and making her life hell, why don't we go in and see what it's like- I mean, go in and make her miserable"

Gwen stare at her younger sibling behind the glass of the pod, clinching her fists in anger that someone dared to go against her direct orders, that anger turned into a longing to punish her sister.

"Fine, we go in"

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

Jeremy was kinda nervous when he lay down in the machine; he had never done anything like this before, but of course, neither had anyone else in the room. The lights turned of and were suddenly replaced by multi-colored spinning lights on the sides of the pods, Jeremy felt himself getting kind of drowsy as he closed his eyes, and felt himself go through a tingling sensation as he was being ported.

Cade had to hurry to get a pod for himself, but he couldn't help but stop and stare at Jeremy when he ran by the pod he was in, he looked so peaceful when he was asleep, like a little angel, cade swore to himself he would se that same face again, except he would be right next to his love when he did.

The man ran on to a nearby open pod and jumped in, he made it just in time for the glass lid to close and he was on his way.

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

People cleared the way and backed up against the wall as Amanda walked by, she was well known around here, and they all had reason to fear her. She found a pod that no one was currently in, near, or around. And chances were that it would stay that way.

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

Back at control, everything was in order; hundreds of little stat boards were coming up on the huge computer screen that covered the wall.

Neal pressed down a button and talked into a headset he had on his head.

"ROLE CALL" he ordered, sounding all important

"M. Kent, check!"

"T.Greft, check!"

"P.Sherman, check!"

"L.Kelly! check!"

"A.Griffon, check!"

"L.Bagnall, check!"

"S.Kaiba, check!"

20 or so more people later

"We can hear you all, loud and clear, system online and so far no mistakes, congratulate yourselves, WE DID IT!" everyone in the real world and the virtual one let up a loud cheer of celebration as right then, hundrends of thousands of people were being teleported into a world of their own making

Mokuba looked down and tightened his hold around Seto's waist, they were hundreds of feet in the air, riding on a huge black riding dragon and needless to say, it was kinda nerve-racking to think about what happens if you slip off. Seto noticed how his little brother was scared and got an idea, using the chains hooked to the metal object around the dragons head, he made it land on solid ground.

"come around me" he turned and put his arm around mokuba so he could without falling off, even when it was on the ground the dragon was tall enough to cause bad injury if you were to lose your footing and fall.

Mokuba climbed around Seto and leaned back into him when the dragon jumped into the air and opened its enormous leathery wings, catching air under them to rise to the sky, it was much easier to bear now that he had something behind him for stability.

"where are we going?" he had to yell for his older brother to hear him over the wind the dragon was making.

"to a village, there are some ruins in it that Toby told me about that I need to check for any errors"

The ground beneath them was moving so fast that if you tried to stare at and follow any one object, there was a good chance you'd get whiplash. Finally the tops of some buildings could be seen, when they got closer mokuba could see that the buildings were large poles of wood with animal skins stretched over them. Gave it an 'out in the wilderness' look.

"what's the name of this place?" he asked as he looked around, the locals that weren't staring at the dragon and its riders were busily working to gather supplies, from chopping wood to picking berries.

"DryWood village"

"funny name"

"I think all the good names were already taken when they created this place."

"it shows, so, where do we put the dragon?" mokuba asked as he jumped to the ground when the dragon laid down to relieve itself of its passengers. But Seto didn't have to answer because as soon as they were off of it's back it jumped back into the air and

Disappeared?

"what the-"

"that's how it goes away, all I have to do is call for it and it will reappear" Seto explained as he walked toward the town, mokuba following.

mokuba realized something he needed to ask, just in case.

"what happens when a player needs to leave the game, like an emergency or something?"

"simple, they bring up one of those panels I had earlier and request to leave the game"

"how?"

"they all get briefed on it when they enter into the world, and stay by my side, who knows what might be in here"

"mokuba, seto, funny to see you here!" a higher-than-normal pitched male voice could be heard from behind them.

"oh no, hell no" seto grumbled as his eyes shadowed over, his body becoming as stiff as a board.

Lucky slowly opened her eyes, not knowing what to expect from this new world, and what she saw made her jaw drop.

It was beautiful; there were green trees everywhere and a lake with a small waterfall that had water that was so clear that she could see colorful fish swimming on the other side from where she stood. She was about to see how cold the water was (for curiosity purposes of course) when she heard a moan from behind her. She turned sharply to see where the noise had come from when she saw several people, kids her age mostly, laying on the ground like she had just been. She stepped toward one to see if he was 'here' yet when a right flash of light illuminated the patch of grass next to her and another teen appeared out of thin air. At first it surprised her, but she quickly figured it in her mind that that was how they would all end up getting there.

She took a moment to look around and fully take in all her surroundings, but all she could see were trees, being resourceful, she climbed up the rocks leading up to the top of the small waterfall and looked around, now being able to see above the foilage. From where she stood she could see the roofs of what looked like civilization, and where there were people, there would be someone to help her find Ty. Jumping down she made a full run for the city, there was a path from where she and the others were to her destination, so all the plants, vines, and potentially dangerous creatures could be avoided. There was an old looking wood sign posted on the side of the road, it read: 'Old Tree City mile '

"Old Tree? That's a weird name" Lucky thought to herself, kind of outloud, as she continued running down the path.

When she came to the city gates, she looked up and around at the extreme details used in decorating, this looked like some sort of medieval trade town from a book or a movie, it all looked so real, it even felt real when she placed her hand on a wood carving on a wall and felt its cold curves and corners of the design (a shield with a sword going straight down it and two axes on each side, with some sort of symbol in the middle, use your own imaginations) she continued to walk into the town, the small of dirt replaced with the stench of too many sweaty people being crowded in too small an area, it was kind of like ammonia, but that could have easily been from the cow that was now relieving itself in the middle of the street.

Eww.

"are you from the outside world" a deep voice form behind Lucky asked, making her jump in surprise.

"uhhI guess so.why?" she turned to see a tall man wearing a mail suit of armor and the same crest that she had been feeling on earlier was engraved on his chest piece.

"then you must come with me" he said, making a gesture

"sorry, but I don't go anywhere with complete strangers" she folded her arms and stood her ground, she had been trained for times like this, and it wasn't the first time she ever had to use it either.

"then allow me to introduce myself, I'm Garneth Rivers, I'm a knight of the city of Old Wood, assigned to help the young, old, endangered, sick, and to escort all newcomers into our world to the town center square, where further instructions of how to live and thrive here will be given by one of the creators"

"creators?"

"those who made us, who thought us up, made us, and gave us all life"

"oh, ok, where too?" he smiled as he led her down the street to a much nicer district, where the smell of flowers and herbs filled the air, kind of like when lucky would open the kitchen window that sat above the rose garden, where she would throw salad scraps to a turtle she called Scooter that came around every day.

"here we are, and good luck my lady" he half bowed and walked away to find more 'newcomers' to bring here.

"lady? Whatever" she was now in a crowd of teenagers, all talking among themselves, but they all stopped and turned their heads to the center immediately when light flashed and a figure was now standing on a podium.

"Attention Everyone! Welcome to the new world!" the figure yelled, lucky could now see the person fully, it was a girl, looked in her early 20's, wearing a 2 piece outfit with a dark blue bottom dress with a slit up the side of one leg, and a top shirt that wrapped tightly around her sides, but didnt cover her shoulders at all, along with a lot of gold jewelry all over her.

"my name is Elina, I am a Gamemaster over this region, I am here to explain to you all what your purpose here is and how to function here.."

She went on and on, Lucky only listen to the interesting parts, but kinda only half-listened to the other stuff, finally she finished with:

"if any of you wish to here any of that over again, just take your commuting watches and select the option for needing a gamemaster, I'll get to you as soon as I can, and speaking of your watches-" she opened hers up and sent a signal to the outside control room, instantly there were a hundred red glows all over the crowd, as each and every one now ha done of these things on their wrists. Lucky stared hers over, looking at it from top to bottom, deciding to fool around with the controls later.

"-now, go out there and have some fun, I'll be happy to hear any and all of your questions" she dismissed them with a wave of her and as she dematerialized and vanished. The crowd of people instantly chattering excitedly as others got into groups and started leaving. Lucky was still looking at her device when someone stood right infront of her.

"Lucky Rightbane"

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

(Gwen and Jason POV)

"ugh, I'm already sick of this stupid world with its stupid trees and its stupid animals" Jason complained as he tried to keep up with Gwen.

"oh stop your whining, your just angry that you fought a crab and lost"

"lost?! I won! I even have a trophy to prove it" he stated proudly, half wincing as he lifted his hand up, and lo and behold, an entire crab claw was still hooked to the skin of his finger.

"stomping on it until its claw comes off and it starts chasing you in circles does not count as winning you moron" Gwen let go of a tree branch she had pushed back as she walked past it, it went flying back and hit Jason in the chest, making the crab pincer fall off and land somewhere in the bushes.

"whatever, hey, is that a town?" he pointed over to the right, and by the looks of it if they made a good jog for it, they could make it there in about 5 minutes.

"let's go, the sooner I catch that miserable little brat the sooner I can haul her butt back to the mansion where I will be putting in those torture chambers you suggested" she said half jokingly, half seriously as she made a straight way to the city, climbing over large roots and fallen trees, it took slightly longer than she had wanted it to, but when they got there, they didn't find lucky, but they did see a crowd of teens and kids all listening to some chick talking about something. If Lucky were around she would probably be here, they figured as much, and the looked around for her, standing on an elevated part of the wall to get a better view point.

They couldn't see anyone resembling her sibling until the woman vanished and the people started spreading out and leaving.

"hey!, there she is I see her!" Jason yelled to Gwen as he made a run for her. Lucky had her back turned to him and was talking to someone neither of them recognized, but when Jason reached out to grab her shoulder to spin her around and give her hell, she, like that girl form the podium, vanished, along with whoever it was she was talking to.

"what the-" Gwen started as Jason lost his balance and fell to the stone ground where the smell of urine was the strongest.

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

(Lucky POV and rewind about 15 seconds)

"Lucky Rightbane?" a male voice asked as lucky looked up to see who had asked for her.

"yes?"

"my name is Tobi, I'm a game master, your brother has requested that I take you to him"

"what? Ty? Really?!"

"yes, are you ready to go?"

"yes! Of course"

"okay, now dont be scared, this will only tingle for a second" he opened the commuter up and pressed a button, lucky felt a warm light come between her and Tobi as she was blinded for only a second, and when she opened her eyes she squealed (yes you read it right, Lucky squealed) in delight when she saw who else was there, running up into his arms, getting a huge, tight hug.

"Ty!!"

Jeremy looked up at the massive boat infront of him in awe and disbelief

"this is ours?"

"no, it's m-i-n-e" Jake corrected him in a snobby way

"remind me again, how did you get it again?"

"its first come first serve, I was first, duh"

"but how are you gonna work it?"

"its something called a crew you moron, it comes with the ship, speaking of which, youre the cabin boy"

"the what?"

"cabin boy: person that does whatever the captain he points to himself tells him to, so get your butt up there and grab a mop"

"but-"

"or I could just leave you on the dock where someone I see would be more than happy to take you" he pointed behind Jeremy-

Right at cade. Who was several yards away. Jeremy's eyes widened as he ran up the ramp into the ship and inside the cabin.

"that was easy" Jake muttered as he and the last of the crew made their way up the ramp and took their positions.

Jeremy held unto the wall tightly as the ship rocked back and forth, leaving the dock, and heading out into the open sea. He felt so nervous, what was gonna happen? What would they do? Where would they go? Would cade catch up with them? All he could do was scrub floors and wait for time to tell him his destiny in this new world.

elsewhere

'ah Jeremy, my love, you can try and run from me but it is pointless, no matter where you go, what you do, I will always be there behind you, and once I catch you, I swear, you will never escape from me'

Cade stood at the stern of his ship he had just signed for at the dockmaster's office. He looked over his shoulder of his crew, they were about 15 of them in all, some young, some old, all in sea-weathered clothing and skins.

"well, what are you waiting for! We have a ship to find!" he barked out the order as they all scurried to obey

'and a precious treasure to steal' he said to himself as he smirked, soon Jeremy would be his, all his.

back at Jake's ship

"you are pathetic you know that?" Jake leaned against the side of the cabin wall, Jeremy leaned over the railing, it had only been a few hours since they left the docks and he was already seasick.

"Jake, leave him alone, he can't help it" Sydney walked by, embracing Jake in a hug.

Jeremy puked up the last of his lunch, still feeling dizzy he tried to catch his footing, having to feel along the wall to get back into the cabin.

"barf in my cabin and I swear jeremy I will cut you to pieces and throw you overboard!"

"you have nothing to worry about, I think I threw my actual stomach up that time"

The crew all poked fun at Jeremy for being queasy on the ship, picking on him and calling him names like landlubber and such.

He leaned against the wall on the inside of the ship, he slid down the side and sat on the floor, resting his head on his knees.

"god, I'm already sick of this"

"that's an understatement" he looked up to see Sydney standing there

"what you want Sydney?" he asked in a polite manner.

"nothing from you, but I do want you to know to just hang in there, I'll talk to Jake, all I know is with you hurling your cookies over the side of the ship like that just won't do, maybe he'll let you off at the next port, who know's, maybe you'll find your way there on land"

The thought of being alone scared Jeremy, but he couldn't decide what was worse, throwing up and being picked on, or being alone..of course, with Cade on the prowl, he'd never really be alone, would he?

Jeremy sighed as he stood up (with Sydney's help) and picked up a scrubbing rag, he got down on the floor (he was less nauseated that way) and began cleaning it thoroughly

Mokuba listened in disinterest at Noah's bragging about how he hacked Seto's email account and found out about the game. Seto was sitting on the bench next to him, he head planted into the tabletop.

"I just want to know why you guys would leave me behind to go have all the fun yourselves?" He complained, sipping more of the drink they had bought from a town merchant.

"Must have slipped our minds" Mokuba said in a sarcastic voice that Noah totally bought.

"I'm going to go get another drink, if I'm not back in 5 minutes it's because I've slit my wrists" Seto said bluntly as he stood up and walked from the table.

Mokuba sighed as he watched Seto walk away, this was supposed to be 'Seto and Mokuba' time, not 'Seto, Mokuba, and irritating stepbrother Noah' time.

"So, I heard in the briefing that the hot chick gave that we're supposed to all have certain he raises two fingers on each hand and does the quote sign gifting and talents, any idea what ours are?" he spoke into his glass, finishing off his beverage.

Mokuba shook his head.

"No clue, Seto's supposed to show me more about it later"

"Speaking of the great depression, where is he? I need another drink" he set it down on the table, just in time for Seto to get back and have it shoved at him, Seto took the wordless order and walked off to go get the glass filled again, giving Noah an irritated glare as he walked back off.

"Though Noah, seriously, who's going to take care of the company if you're gone? Gozuboro is retired"

"I made a few calls and he's going to come back and see how my company is doing without him there"

"uh huh right" Mokuba rolled his eyes, truth was, Noah didn't do any of the work, and the company wasn't 'his', it belonged to the three of them, just Seto and he did all the work and Noah got all the credit and the fame.

"Well finally I was about to die of dehydration you slacker" Noah took the drink from Seto's hand as he sat down.

"Oh, for shame" your real older brother commented as he sat back down, now acting completely normal, as if Noah wasn't even there.

"Now, I'd figure with you being some sort of power in this world and me being your superior, I would get yawns a few benefits yawns and head starts to nod as in some cheats and stuff-he rests his head on the tabletop, snoring lightly

Mokuba smirked at Seto who stood up and dumped the rest of Noah's drink into the grass, Mokuba stood with him and both came onto either side of him.

"Nice move with the sleep stuff"

"Hey, being a game master does have its benefits"

"What we going to do with him, we can't just leave him here"

"Sure we can, it's easy"

"Seto" Mokuba grumbled

"Fine I'll put him in the Inn, but after that we're leaving this town"

"Where will we go?"

"Away. Far away."

Mokuba helped Seto lift Noah up and take him to a place with a sign that read: "Menlo's Silver Fin Inn"

"Seriously, where do they get these names from?" Mokuba joked as they left a few minutes later, leaving their blue-haired step-brother behind them.

Seto led Mokuba to right outside of the town where he re-summoned his riding dragon.

"Can we go see those ruins now? I bet it will be cooler at night"

"ok fine but stay close to me, like I said before, you don't know what might jump out at you" Seto lifted his little brother up onto the dragons back and seated him right in front of him, Mokuba felt the rush of cool air hit his face as the giant reptile leaped into the air and the sensation of flight kicked in.

Dragon riding gives you a feeling that you will never forget, the smell, the chills, that terrible feeling you get when you land and its over, like roller coasters, they end all too quickly.

Mokuba sadly watched the behemoth fade away as Seto dismissed it, the thick forest now facing them and civilization miles away.

They still had a few hours of daylight left by the looks of it, and Mokuba wanted to make the best of it, he grabbed Seto's hand and pulled him along the path to the ancient ruins.

(Inside the ruins)

This was incredible, this place looked so old, so real, it felt so old, so real, it even smelled- well actually the smell was terrible, is was the stench of old, real (real dust, that is) and dead mixed together, which was the same smell as a elevator filled with those old geezers from Kaiba Corp.

Mokuba's fingers brushed a stone tablet, and surprisingly enough it didnt shatter, apparently they wanted this to last through the abuse of the gamers would put it through.

"We should go, it's getting late"

"Go where?" Mokuba asked curiously, walking beside his brother while looking up at him.

"I was thinking maybe a campout tonight, just the two of us, what do ya think?" Seto actually said in a cheerful manner, the effects of Noah's obnoxious presence obviously had left his mind.

"Sure!" Mokuba ran the rest of the way out of the ruins, tapping his foot while waiting for Seto, who took his precious time; just too playfully torture his little brother.

Soon enough (with a little game master magic of course) they had a fire built and a place to rest, and as of now they were staring up at a star filled sky, it seems that they put the same star system as the real world into the virtual one, either way, it was breath-taking.

"Seto, why did they do this?" Mokuba asked, his back on the ground and his arms cushioning his head.

"Do what?"

"Make this entire world? I know it's probably making lots of profit for them, but still, you know what I mean"

"I don't know why Pegasus decided to create this masterpiece of a land, and I'm sure money did have something to do with it- he pauses for a moment but I don't know the overall reason for it"

"Hmm" Mokuba closed his eyes for a moment, taking it all in, but the silence was broken when a loud noise was heard in the forest.

Seto stood to his feet, drawing his weapon out, staring into the forest, searching for the disturbance.

"Seto, what is-?"

"Shush mokie"

Mokuba rolled onto his stomach and stared into the forest with his brother, both completely unaware of the approaching danger.

Seto's pov

I stood there with my battle sword drawn, this was a dangerous area, I knew I should have taken Mokuba to a lower leveled area, but this was a pretty cool area and he wanted to go, so- there's the noise again! I strain my eyes, and catch a glimpse of something that sent shivers up my spine, 2 glowing red eyes, with black slits in them, but I only saw it for a moment then it disappeared.

After a moment I let my sword drop, no sooner had I let my guard down when I hear Mokuba's panicked yell for me

"Seto!"

Lucky was still holding tightly to her brother's torso, he basically carried her around everywhere, and by everywhere, I mean everywhere around the military camp, because within the tiem he got ehre and was able to find a game master, Ty had somehow managed to become the commanding general over hundreds of soldiers, who were real people, here to enjoy the game.

"Lucky, don't you want to get down now?"

Lucky paused for a moment before simply saying 'nope'.

"So, how did Gwen react to you coming?"

"what she doesn't know won't piss her off Ty" her brother sighed as he sat down, Lucky finally letting him go as she sat next to him, resting her head on his shoulder.

"I have a feeling I'm going to be getting a very angry phonecall when we get back." But he smiled as he looked back down at his younger sibling.

"but heck, let her be mad, this will all be well worth Gwen's wrath" he hugged Lucky close to him, they sat there silently for awhile before Lucky perked up.

"Ty, why do I fell different in this world?" she leaned up, looking out at the beautiful scenery in front of them.

"what do you mean by different?"

"well, I don't know, its like there's something on the inside of me that just wants to jump out, I can feel it all over, especially when it tingles in my hands" she held her hand up to look at it, it seemed perfectly normal, then why was there an itching on the inside of it?

"you know what, you might have special powers"

"what?"

"I heard some of the guys talking about it to that Toby guy while he was here, apparently everyone here was randomly gifted with some sort of ability, maybe you got one too"

"is he still here?"

"I'm pretty sure he left after he ported you here Luck"

"aww, well, then how do I know if I have powers?" like any 12 yr old, she was eager to know if she had super powers like those cool people in cartoons.

"I don't know, maybe it will just come to you"

Lucky slumped down, she had gotten so eager just to hear 'maybe it will come to you', that automatically meant that it wouldn't happen for a long time.

"can we go explore the woods? Please Ty?" at first her big brother was about to say no, but heck, this was the first time he'd seen her in how long? 1? Maybe 2 years? Besides, this was a military fortress, what could possibly go wrong while he was gone?

"ok, let's go" he stood up and they walked through the building and out to the rec. yard, there was a gate there that would grant them access to the woods.

later

"wow, it all looks so real" Lucky stared at a river crab as it walked in a side-ways motion in the water, and scurried into the underwater roots of a one of the many trees that were bordering the lake.

Her attention was drawn away when she heard the scream-like noises of a bird, she looked up to see 2 little birds, and a larger falcon circling them, ready to kill them then their young babies.

"no!" Lucky yelled aloud, as she reached her hand up, hoping maybe a noise will distract that bigger bully-bird for abit, but when she extended her arm, the tingling in her palm got worse, much worse, a flash of orange light filled the space and a shrill cry could be heard.

"LUCKY!" Ty yelled when he saw the flash, it was watching a single firework in slow motion, it came from Lucky's hand and was shooting straight like an arrow, the force of whatever had happened pushed his little sister to the hard ground as the globe of bright red/orange light kept to its path, streaking through midair until it hit something solid which it just did.

Lucky stood to her feet, seeing what she had done, the birds and their babies were safe, but on the ground a few yards from the tree it had been haunting was the burnt-to-a-crisp remains of what WAS a falcon.

Still amazed by what she had done, Lucky looked form one hand to another, her body suddenly feeling much more tired than a few seconds ago. She breathed in and out deeply, only some smoke stains on her hands were the change that they had endured, Ty came up behind her and spun her around, checking her over, making sure she wasn't hurt in any way, shape, or form. But while he stressed and toiled over her, Lucky looked up to the fried bird then back down to her hands.

"That. Was. Awesome"

at the gaming headquarters

"everything running smoothly?" a passing overseer asked as she walked by, resting her hand on the back of Neal's chair.

"so far so good, all the GM's have turned in their reports in a timely manner and all systems are working fine"

"good to hear, keep up the good work"

"thanks Kat, can you grab me another coffee?" he asked, listing his empty cup up over his shoulder.

She took it with a sarcastic smirk and left to go to the break room before anyone else asked a favor of her, she decided to play a trick on Neal and began pouring the decaf into his Styrofoam cup, using the shoe of her right leg to scratch the back of her left, at this point she was debating whether or not to spit a luge into it when there was a commotion on the other side of the door, she ran out the door with cup in hand to see many people running back and forth, all talking loudly, trying to yell over each other.

"Neal, what's wrong?!"

"W-we don't know, everything just crashed, we've lost all contact to them!"

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X

back to Seto and Mokuba

Mokuba lost his breath as he turned over to see the huge monster standing over him, in his adrenaline rush he saw the sword come down slowly enough for him to roll over and dodge it.

"Mokuba!" Seto yelled as he practically jumped over him, his fighting sword drawn, ready to fight.

In one swing the monster swung it's large arm towards Seto to swipe him, causing Seto to duck and roll, swinging his long sword out trying to cut at the monsters legs to make it fall forward so he and Mokuba could escape, but all the sword did was making a loud clanging noise against the hard scales that laced it's legs. Oh no now he left Mokuba up against that creature alone! Mokuba had finally gotten to his feet and paralysed to his spot, watching as the creature moved slowly but with great power behind each movement which sent chills of fear up Mokuba's spine. What was he to do? Seto didn't give him any weapons yet to defend himself with. "Mokuba! DUCK!" He heard Seto's voice yell again, as he swung his sword again clanging against the metal of the monster's sword with great force, causing a great shuddering pain to go through Seto's hands, making him cringe in agony where as the monster didn't even flinch. It just simply took the chance to swipe Seto aside like a child with a rag doll, causing pain to course through Seto's back as he crashed into the trees that they had camped near by. "Seto! Seto I'm coming!" Seto heard his brother cry out, as he desperately ran to his older brother. "M-Mokuba s-stay back!" Seto cried out trying to protect his only family from such a furious creature. He had no clue who designed this beast, but it was sure built for great physical strength.

With great effort Seto struggled to get to his feet, holding up his sword ready to strike again and protect his little brother. "Request for instant evacuation immediately!" Seto demanded on his com link dodging another strike and finding himself standing in front of Mokuba. But there was nothing but static, what was going on? "Seto can't you get through?" Mokuba asked as you backed away making sure that he remained behind you. "No something wrong..." But before he could say anymore, Mokuba slipped and began to fall down a small ditch. "Mokuba!" But before Seto could even go after his younger sibling he was swiped to the side again, crashing into a wall of the ruins and that was when his entire world went black.

Mokuba watched with wide eyes as Seto's limp form fell to the ground, he took a few steps back before turning and running before the monsters attention was on him, but it was only seconds before something could be heard running behind him, all he could do was try and run faster, if he could only reach the entrance to the ruins he might be able to lose the creature, he rounded the corner and grabbed around the side of the open stone entrance, pulling himself around and in, he tried his best to run in the dark, but frankly, he was running into walls everywhere he turned, not helping the fact that he was panicking, he turned around and saw a eerie shadow fall into the room, he back into the corner and slid to the ground, grabbing his knees, trying not to make any noise, he closed his eyes and heard the near silent footsteps of the creature on the sand floor of the caverns, a deep breathing could be heard, and a terrible smell like week-old garbage filled Mokuba's nostrils , he had to hold back a gag as it came closer to his corner, now it was only inches away from him, why wasn't it attacking?

It was then that a terrible screech could be heard throughout the entire forest, the monster turned to leave the ancient place, giving one sweeping glance before running out and- taking flight?

The youngest Kaiba was much too scared to move form that spot, he stayed there in that position for a good 10 minutes (and eternity to someone who's as terrified as he was then) before sneaking out of the shelter and daring to go back to look for Seto.

He relied on moonlight to see his way back, no noises could be heard now, no yelling or unearthly screaming, no insects, birds, wolves, nothing. The pre-teen finally found where he and his older brother had been camping less than an hour before, everything was out of place and disordered, all that was left was a small bit of campfire, throwing an orange light across his face and all the nearby trees, he remembered the direction his brother had been thrown in and ran over to find him, but much to his horror, he was gone, the only thing left of him was the katana that laid to the side, it was shattered in the middle with blood staining what was left of its silver metal blade. What was he going to do? Where was Seto? What had happened?

The full moon lit up the sky, reflecting its large round self in the salty water that lapped gently as the sides of the creeking ship, the sound itself was a lullaby all its own.

Jake walked through the bed chambers, hammocks at each side of him, filled with the sleeping and tired bodies of his crew, all were dirty, smelly, and snoring very loudly as he made the count.

"17.18.19-"

He looked over at an empty hammock, number 20, aka: Jeremy's.

"where is that little brat" he muttered as he walked around the ship, silently searching for the his pain in the you-know-where. He finally came up to the top deck, where he heard a small snoring sound, he looked over to the left to see a pair of legs hanging over the edge of the top of where Jake's cabin was. A sly grin came to his face as a mean idea came to him, he walked stealthily over to the edge, he reached up to grab the child's leg and-

"ah!" Jeremy yelped as he was rudely awakened to a sensation of falling, when his mind finally registered it that he was in no immediate danger and that Jake was the cause of it, he made an irritated groaning sound as he realized that he was now standing up on his own two feet, well, Jake was kinda holding him up, laughing loudly at how Jeremy had squealed, Jeremy pushed himself away from him in frustration.

"aww come on runt you know that was funny, admit it" Jake pestered as he let him go.

"no. it wasn't. it was morbidly terrifying" Jeremy whined as he crossed his arms. Jake started laughing again.

"you are so cute when you pout" Jeremy's eyes widened as he and Jake turned around quickly, only proving who the voice belonged to.

"sigh what do you want Cade?" Cade's ship was only a yard away from rubbing up against Jake's, not only was it abit dangerous but also quite rude as well.

"well we recognized your vessel and decided to drop in to say hi" he said smugly, his crew busting their hides still doing work, this late at night. "well that, and I couldn't go long without saying hi to the love of my life" he grinned widely at Jeremy, who averted his gaze to elsewhere, not wanting to think about it at all.

"what do you really want cade, I know you didn't stalk us all the way out here just to make googly-eyes at the shrimp, speaking of which, you. To bed. Now." Jake stated as he playfully shoved Jeremy, who obeyed quickly and willingly, running down to the chambers and falling into his hammock, but not quite able to fall asleep.

back on deck

Cade had boarded the vessel and was now in Jake's cabin, the 2 men discussing a business proposition.

"so let me get this straight, you want me to take you on as a partner? Why? So you'll have easy access to go screw the kid?" Jake spat, he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, it had been a long day and he was in no mood for Cade's perverted little games.

"no, that's just a handy perk, no, the real reason behind my little proposition is that, well, just look at the facts, 2 ships, 2 crews, 2 captains, twice as much in riches"

Jake closed his eyes for a moment, considering the pro's and con's of the arrangement.

"deal" he stated after thinking about it for awhile, he leaned forward and took Cade's hand in an agreement gesture

Seto opened his eyes slowly before leaning up into the sitting up position, he was in a dark – cage? There were several other people in there, from teens and children in the game, and some game characters that had been built in. Seto looked around, this place seemed familiar, he just couldn't pinpoint where he was exactly, as he was deep in thought trying to remember, the sounds of some of the younger kids screaming in terror jerked him back into reality, there was a large winged monster infront of the bars, just like the one that had taken him. The creature's eyes glowed with a sickly green tint to them, his pupils no more than snake-like slits. It was a demon.

It opened some sort of lock on the cage door and 3 more of the winged terrors appeared, each with huge blades and blood-stained swords gripped in their coarse-haired hands. One reached in and grabbed one of its captives, pulling the girl up to her feet, and pushing her past him, he reached for another and the message was sent across: stand up. Which they all did out of pure fear.

This place…..it was dark…like a cave…yet the only visible light source were red flames, probably magma crystals, Seto remembered Tobi telling him about the many different crystals and their functions, now if only he had paid more attention.

They were all guided down a path overlooking a deep pit, one of the teens froze when he looked down, turns out he had a fear of heights, and refused to walk another step on the dirt path. This presented no problem for the demons, they simply pushed him over the edge to his inevitable death, his screams echoed throughout the caverns, until a sickening thud was heard. Silence followed.

The row of captive humans walked steadily around the edge, not wanting to suffer the same fate, Seto kept an eye on these escorts, something was terribly wrong with the game, for starters, his connection to the outside was no more, these demons aren't supposed to even exist, and when someone 'died' in this virtual world, there was usually a flash of light as they were ported back to real life, when that kid hit the ground, there was no such light.

A shudder of intense fear ran up his spine. This was not a good situation to be in anymore, heck, wasn't good in the first place, this game had suddenly taken a much worse turn of events.

He could soon see where they were being led to, there was a sickish green/yellow light a ways ahead of them on their narrow path, howls and grunts of unknown creatures and demons could be heard.

There was just something in the atmosphere that made all the present humans aggressive, Seto didn't know why but he was beginning to feel and overwhelming urge to………to-

"BACK OFF!" he yelled at a nearby attendant, the only thing keeping his hands from being around this creatures throat were the chains on his wrists.

The rush of adrenaline made him oblivious to the fact that he wasn't alone in his rampage, another monster let out a rather loud squeal of pain as a mere child bit him on the leg. The demon grabbed the kid by the neck, meaning to end his virtual life, but all that did was fuel the rage of the now mob-like prisoners that went into an uproar.

Why were they being like this? So violent, so anxious, so………like their captors?

While the humans were making futile attempts at a revolt none of them noticed the tall winged figure step out onto a nearby balcony that overlooked the room, though no one could see his face it only took a simple look into one of one of his underlings directions to give a silent order, one by one the prisoners were brought out of the crowded center of the room, receiving either a nod- or no reaction at all.

The ones that got the nod of approval were forced from their fellow friends in the group and dragged struggling away with one or two of these much larger monsters at their side.

Two or three were carried away before one girl was brought forward, she received no nod, no gesture of any kind, she was flung, chains and all, into the collection of demons that were standing around the edges and walls of the room.

It was then that Seto realized what was going on, somehow, if you were considered desirable or worthwhile to the big guy on the balcony, you were taken away, your life assumable spared for his evil purposes, but if you weren't-

He was jerked out of his thoughts as he was grabbed by his shoulders and forced to look up at the one who seemed to be in charge around here.

After what seemed like an eternity the monsters head slowly rose, then fell.

Seto had gained approval.

He immediately found himself between two winged demons who were both at least over a foot taller than he was, but he was a bit more worried about where he was being taken rather than his escorts appearances.

They brought him to a place on the outside of the fortress, it was all dirt and dead trees as far as the eye could see, with an occasional torch or bonfire for light, and more of these vile creatures walking around disturbed piles and mounds of dirt, they were all chanting some unfamiliar tongue, as if they were placing a curse, or casting some wicked spell, even-……..…beginning a ritual.

He noticed that he wasn't the only one there as he recognized a few of the others from the previous room, his head was suddenly jerked back as a long-nailed shaman grabbed a fistful of his hair, a vulgarly terrible taste entered his mouth as a disgusting chunky liquid was forced to slide its slimy way down his throat, he tried to force it back up but the shaman proved to be physically stronger than he, after the last bit of the elixir was gone he was completely let go.

Immediately dropping to his knees, the goth boy felt very weak, weak and dizzy, his entire world fading from view as he slowly fell unconscious, the next person in the makeshift line falling to the ground to join in on the same fate.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn't long before all the ones that had gained favour with the demons were all on the ground, passed out from the elixir that was poisoning their blood, mutating it into this black…

It wasn't long before all the ones that had gained favour with the demons were all on the ground, passed out from the elixir that was poisoning their blood, mutating it into this black….sickly colour, only getting worse and covering more of their bloodstreams by the second.

Soon their limp bodies were dragged down the many rows of disturbed dirt by many of these vile creatures, until they came to the southern edge, where empty holes in the ground were as plentiful as the stars in the sky, but they were soon to be filled……very soon.

Seto was carelessly dropped face down on top of two others, and soon a pile of dirt flew down and showered them all, covering them up like one would the dead.

In this quite creepy compartment was our GM, a fruit merchant from the nearby mountains, and one of many priests that served at the temple of the Dragons, they were all dead now, their carcasses scattered around this very field, their purpose was never to become a weapon as these unfortunate other will be, but only as a first meal for the winged mutations created by Lord Akuma himself to feed on after they transformed into his likeness- in their own shared graves.

And overlooking this massive graveyard was a shadowed figure, his legs long and muscular, his shoulders well rounded, his slit eyes glowed from the shroud covering his head, admiring his own handiwork. Then a smaller, crouched figure came to his side, pouches of unknown powders at his belt, next to them was multiple daggers that were stained with the blood of many victims.

"Won't be long now my Lord" the smaller creature purred with his raspy voice "Your army will be stronger yes, and soon you will rule this very world and all who live in it!"

"That is correct Zuri, it's only mere days before the ritual is complete and my creations will be striking fear into the very cores of humans everywhere, the killing, the slaughtering, the bloodshed, all will bow before me or die" he finished, he deep voice sending echoes through the smaller demons spine.

Zuri looked back over the edge of the tower, his eyes dancing in glee as he pictures what it will be like when Lord Akuma rules the land, the age of humans will be over forever, and the time for true darkness will come, how delightfully delicious!

Time Skip, about a week in-game time

Jeremy scrubbed at the dirt and grime that was caked onto the dirty windows, hid progress was slow and gruelling, but it gave him a perfect excuse to be locked in Jake's cabin all day. He let the rag drop into the bucket of brown water as he grabbed another from the bottom of the pile and started again, little beads of mucky cleaning water dripping down the glass as he went back to his duties, only now noticing something in the distance, he strained his eyes to see something….a town? Yes, that's what it was, a town with a harbour, finally, maybe, with some luck, he could convince Jake to let him get supplies for him if they docked the ships there. That way he could stretch his legs and get to see some different scenery for a change.

He sighed before going back to the hard scrubbing which was using up his last bit of elbow grease he had left, taking another look outside, he noticed something in the sky, was that the moon? At this time of day?

He shrugged it off as just another part of the game and went back to work.

DryWood Village

Mokuba sat on the edge of the docks, resting his head on his hands, he was bored out of his freaking mind!

"Oh come on, being a land lubber isn't that bad" his blue-haired step-brother questioned as he rested his forearms on the wooden structure next to the raven-haired boy.

"You have no idea…." He muttered, his mind still filled with horrific images of those…monsters that chased him and kidnapped Seto….

"Hm, look at that" Noah pointed out as he noticed the extra circle in the clear sky, but Mokuba wasn't even in the least bit interested as he continued to sit there, moping about his apparent loss.

At the Military Barracks

BOOM

Another direct hit to a wooden target, Lucky was getting good at this fire-throwing stuff, not to mention she liked watching things get turned into piled of charred ash……

"Hey, princess, save some forest for the rest of us" commented a familiar aussie friend of hers.

"Whatever Valon" she ignored him as she went back out to the woods to find yet another target on which to wreak havoc on.

"This will do" She said to herself aloud as she picked up a dead piece of wood from the forest floor.

"Eeep!" she yelped as she dropped it, a spider crawling off of it and up a nearby tree. Shuddering she held her arm absent mindedly with no intention to continue target practice today, she looked up and admired the beautiful blue sky, the bright sun, the black moon- wait, the moon? What?

??

A young girl, gifted with the power of healing and granted the position of priesthood walked through this abandoned, desolate forest, there were no animals, no wildlife, even the trees and shrubs were dying.

A bad feeling entered her very core as she gazed around her, now she knew why the villagers and townsfolk said this place was evil, the priest hadn't ever planned on entering this part of the mountains, but when the locals begged her to help because people, including children, had been going missing in it, she couldn't help but try and assist them.

Now she was almost regretting her decision, and now things were suddenly getting even colder and dimmer, funny, she hadn't recalled seeing clouds out before, running to a nearby clearing the healer looked up and gasped at what she saw.

A midnight black orb was covering and blocking out the sun, bringing darkness to all the land……

For several days the humans that had been drugged and buried rested in their dirty graves, the poison given to them had certain properties of its own, and had he judged it correctly, Akuma's army should be rising from the earth this very day.

With a single order; smaller, weaker creatures ran out to the fields, and when they saw a marker of where something had been buried they began to dig with their bleeding and ragged bare fingers, what they were digging for only their master knew.

That's when the sky went dark, and all around the area at different places the shaman took out tiny horns made from dragon bone and blew them as loud as they could, summoning forth the abominations they had created themselves.

One slave screamed in horror as a massive, clawed, and hairy arm burst from the ground he had been digging at and grabbed him; instantly snapping his fragile spine.

Monsters. Hundreds upon thousands of them.

They emerged from the ground with little help, their leathery, black wings stretched as drool dripped from jagged, razor sharp fangs, a mix between and growl and a hiss emerged from their throat, human they had been once before, but no longer could anything about them be considered human, they had no remorse, they had no regrets, they had no soul.

As for the certain teen buried in these lands, he too was transformed, but the process was incomplete, giving him the few characteristics of an abomination, with still the mind and heart like that of a human.

In agonizing pain he cried out, tearing the skin on his head as he tried to hold it with his transformed hands, he was dazed and confused, where was he? Why did he hurt so much? What were these things all around him?

Once his right thinking returned to him his adrenaline shot in, giving him the ability to either fight, or take flight. Wisely he chose flight, and taking many painful and terrible bounds in the direction of a nearby forest, he attempted to get away without taking the notice of any other creatures around.

But his futile efforts were for nothing as the sounds of the patrols barking out an order, giving him a single warning to stop, but pure fear and adrenaline wouldn't let him; the vibrations of the demon dogs' feet digging into the earth at a rabid rate as they chased after him only fueled his push to get away, he was close to the edge of the forest now, closer………….closer…….

He made it in.

But that didn't stop his pursuers, not by a long shot. The noses on the damn dogs was strong enough to pick up a 2-day trail, and Seto was no exception as wherever he tried to dodge and hide, they were right at his heels.

Stumbling and struggling, still feeling the severe and utter pain caused by these monsters, he fell to his knees in the wet mud, holding his arms tight, willing the pain to go away so he could concentrate on getting away. Hearing grunts and roars, he couldn't stop long, or he would be discovered and return to that hell again, it was almost as bad as being punished by Gozuboro.

Picking himself up again, the brunette stumbled forward yet again, panting and rasping heavily, turning his head to see that he had been spotted by his pursuers, a sudden headache began to overwhelm him, causing him to only see a blur as he was knocked back into a ditch over overflowing mud and water.

So this was it? This was the end?

He strained his eyes closed, preparing for the pain which never came, but much to his shock and surprise, he heard a light, calming whisper in his ear as something soft covered his mouth.

"Shhh"

His vision was too hampered for him to see who or what was stilling him, trying to calm him, all he could do was stay completely still and heed their advice, for he truly was desperate.

As he heard grunts and growls from the creatures on the dirt ledge overlooking the mud pit he closed his eyes, mostly out of fear, he didn't want to go back, not back to that hell hole where they would do who-knows-what to him. He even held his breath, a burning sensation in his hurting lungs hit him, but if it meant getting away it would all be well worth it.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity but was only a matter of mere seconds, the noises faded, telling him he was safe, they were gone.

Fingers grabbing at hard dirt he tries to pull himself up and out of the ditch, but immense pain kept him from it, his fingers slipped and he was about to fall back in, then something grabbed his arm, stopping his descent into the pool of muck and helped him get the leverage he needed to get out.

But he lost all strength in his feet as he tried to lift himself up on them, making him drop to the wet, slippery ground, and pulling whoever this was helping him right on top of his spread-out form.

Rain from above helped wash out some of the mud that had been clouding his vision, he opened his eyelids, blinking a few times to get the junk out, to see a brown-haired girl gasping for breath, laying on him, her formerly white robes now brown and stained.

"Are gasp you….ok?" asked her feminine voice, but Seto was still in too much shock to come up with an answer as he too struggled for the air he breathed.

"Who…..are you?" he asked as he caught hold of his senses, lifting himself up as she too struggled to stand.

"I'm sorry, my name is Heather" she responded right before a crack of lightning flashed through the sky, making them both jump, before he could respond to her she took his wrist in her hand, urging him to come along.

"Come on I got to get you out of here before those things come back" she said as she gently tugged him in a certain direction, he had no real choice but to follow, either go along with this complete stranger who just saved his aching hide or go for it alone and possibly run into the demon dogs……..

Feeling a cold sensation run through his spine at the very thought of the vile creatures he followed along the sapphire-eyed teen, her leading the entire way out as he held his hand to his head, the headache still pounding as hard as ever.

Seto soon all sense of direction and time as he was led along by this smaller human being, it felt like they had walked through brush and a jungle of dying trees for hours before they came to a quiet stream, where things, if anything, were at least somewhat peaceful.

Heather led him to a rock where she ushered him into sitting down to lean against it before she turned to get some water from the stream.

He was still breathing a little heavily, the pain in his chest almost gone but his head was still giving him hell, as a small locust bug landed on his bare shoulder.

Going to shoo the pest away he weakly flung his arm at it, as he did so a pain came to the side of his head, he had just somehow cut himself.

Bringing his hand down he saw that his fingertips were slowly……….changing into these sickly looking black claws……………almost a quarter of a foot in length. When did that happen?

Heather stood up, her water pouch full and some of the clear liquid in a small bowl she carried in her medic bag, she made her way over to Seto and kneeled by him, gently dabbing at his many tears and wounds with a clean cloth that was soon turned black and red.

"You're not looking so great, what did they do to you?" she asked, her eyes glancing up to see his, slightly jumping because somehow his pupils had turned to almost the shape of slits, just like those monsters they had just ran from.

"I…….I……" he was lost for words, what had they done to him?

That's when it happened, a sudden, unexpected eruption of intense pain shot through his entire body, he felt like someone had thrown him into a lake of acid, it hurt so bad he rolled over on his hands and knees, his hands seizing dirt as he was tortured in pain.

Heather jumped back at first, what was happening to him?

"What's wrong!? Tell me what hurts!" she asked in a panic.

"AHHH! Everywheeeere!!" he nearly screamed as he rested his head to the ground, he was losing all muscle control and fast.

Then it all stopped, the thrashing the gripping, it all ceased, that's when Heather realized: he had passed out. She ran to his side and noticed his skin becoming darker blacker and extra limbs were growing from his back, that's when she felt something grab her hand she looked down to see the paled skin of this boy's hands slowly turn the same sort of leathery ashen black and his finger nails were becoming longer and claw like. She was afraid, as his hand size increased practically burying her hand and gripping her arm. The only thing that was preventing Heather from pulling back and running away in fear was the soft whimpers of pain. The boy was unconscious but there were still mumbles and whimpers of pain coming from his lips.

He was clinging on tight to her in a way that indicated he needed her help, so getting closer and placing her hand against his chest where his heart was, hr hand began to glow, trying to soothe the pains to which this boy was now experiencing, gasping in shock when she was pulled close into his arms and held tightly,

Heather POV

Heather slowly let him slide down to the ground, whatever it was now; it was too large and heavy for her to move by herself. Seeing cuts and torn skin all over its dark body she summoned small orbs of light energy and healed the wounds, watching in fascination as the skin closed itself up, the blood drying and not even a scar left behind.

She stayed near him the entire evening; not even leaving to get firewood, besides, last thing she wanted was something that would attract attention to them, for all she knew those monsters could still be out there, searching for them.

Up.

Down.

Up.

Down.

Watching the strange boys' chest rise and drop was almost hypnotic, heather held her knees to her chest to preserve warmth as the first signs of night time came out, from the screams and yells of the nocturnal animals, to rather large bats flying around, catching their dinner of smaller rodents.

She reached into her sack and pulled out a thin white piece of cloth that was one of the pieces to her formerly white robes, seeing that the stranger she had rescued didn't need it as his thick, leathery wings were now wrapped tightly around him, keeping him warm, she laid it across her own shoulders, resting her forehead on her knees, wondering how in the world she got herself into this mess as a nearby small furry animal squealed as it was caught in the clutches of a vampire bat.

At the Barracks

Lucky's ears rang as a spear was thrust into the exposed belly of one of these vile monsters, making it let out a terrible high-pitched scream of pain.

Ty had ordered her to go inside, but this was where all the action was, and she was sure as heck not going to miss out on it.

Feeling the wind blow on the sweat on the back of her neck she turned around, seeing something jump up into the sky, ready to take flight, red flashing around her hands, a simple fireball spell later the invader was falling to the ground, its wings being dissolved into nothingness from the flames.

Panic and disarray took over as more of the demons showed up than were being killed, at this pace the fortress would be overrun, deciding that now would be a good time to listen to her brother – or get a better ranged shot at these things- she turned tail and ran for the side entrance, but was stopped when with great force, one landed on the stone wall only feet from the door, the touch rocks smashing into pieces.

The thing jumped down and circled her, walking on both its legs and hands, crouched over, its eyes glowing in a sickly yellow color, and it shark-like teeth stained red, with small bits of flesh and who-knows-what else in them.

Backing away until her back hit the wall, Lucky tries to form another fire blast, but fear overtook all sense of concentration, hampering her, most likely leading to her warm welcome to the food chain.

WHAP

I sickening thud could be heard as a dark purple longblade sunk deep into the creatures' chest, blood and fluids splattering out in all directions, a few droplets landed on the orange-haired girls' skin, it burnt like acid.

Resting his foot on the now fallen creature, Ty pulled his sword out of its split open abdomen.

"I thought I told you to stay inside"

"I'm going, I'm going" she started as she turned and ran through the thick wooden door, leaving her brother to let out a heavy sigh before running back out onto the field, a fresh fleet of creatures coming in for a landing.

/-Top deck of the Hunter's Creed (Jake's ship) - \\\

Jeremy stared up at the star filled sky, his arms supporting him as he leaned back a little, this spot on the ship had become a favourite thinking place for him, a place he would come a rest and have some peace and quiet when he wasn't cleaning or working.

He took a deep breath in, practically tasting the salt in the air.

That's when a distant screech of some unknown creature could be heard, it had been happening off and on all night, sometimes the black-and-white haired boy swore he saw large man-like objects flying in the sky from time to time.

It was probably nothing though, he closed his eyes again, drifting off into a sleep-like state as the waves gently rocked the boat steadily.

"Pretty peaceful out here isn't it? All things considered…." A deep, male voice was heard and Jeremy felt someone sit down right next to him. Cade.

Trying to be brave the smaller boy stayed in the same position, trying to act as calm as he could.

"I hate to break it to you Cade, but there's no such thing as monsters"

"Maybe in the real world, but out here, anything can happen, wouldn't want something to swoop down and get'cha, would you?" he coaxed, resting his hand on Jeremy's stomach, getting comfy.

"I-I have my r-reasons" he responded, wanting so much to have a good excuse not to be here right now.

"Har Har, now I would be very sad if something were to happen to you………….….with all the scary creatures out at night no one should be left all alone……………..…we should be cabin buddies…." He said, inching closer into the boy's ear, making him whine pitifully.

"Speaking of cabin buddies, Cade get back to your ship, your crew is fighting over cots. Again." Another voice sounded as heavy leather boots walked up to them, Jeremy silently thanking God for the distraction. Jake.

Grudgingly Cade left to go tend to his own men as Jeremy got a reprimand from his older brother about being out so late, he was told to consider himself lucky he wasn't going to be punished this time and ordered to run to bed, which was a place on the floor in Jake's cabin.

After things had calmed down he stared out the grubby glass windows of the ship, seeing the bright yellow moon reflecting on the water, another distant cry was hard as the preteen closed his eyes and turned over, falling into a tired sleep.

-69-69-69-69-69-69-69-69-Temple of Forgotten Souls -69-69-69-69-96-69-69-69

(Amanda POV)

I can hear them, they let out disgusting growls and screams, thinking it will unnerve us, will throw us off.

Oh the stupidity of those oversized imps, the ground vibrates as another tastes the point of my poison-dipped arrow, hitting the ground with enough force to break bones.

They want what we have, inside our home, why they seek it I do not know, but the only way inside is through the top tunnel leading down, and the only thing keeping them from it is the gathering of my brethren, outcasts we all are, we shoot them down using the powers of physical and magical tactics.

The creatures and their minions, they circle around us like buzzards, but another shaft pierces their thick skin, even though it was in the leg the poison is spreading like fueled wildfire, turning their tissues into nothingness, their bodies no more than lifeless sacs of tainted blood by the time they hit the ground.

Tonight we will defend our home, and they will all perish, we will all survive, but a foreboding, irky feeling plagues my mind as we are released from defence duty and allowed to go have some down time.

They will come back, and as luck would have it, the scores upon scores of horned and winged bodies surrounding the temple aren't even a dent in their armies, yes they will be back, and our days, much like the rest of the inhabitants of this virtual world, are numbered.

The Next Morning, the edge of the (formerly known) Sunless Forest, Heather POV

Just waking up, Heather leans her head up, it needed a good stretch as it was stiff and sore. She reached her arm up and rubbed it before automatically leaning over the nearby river, cupping her hands and rinsing off her face to wake herself up.

Remembering the event of the previous day, she looks over her shoulder, expecting to see the large, bulksome monster from last night laying there, but she found no such thing.

The imprint on the dirt where his large body lay was there, but right in the centre of it, curled up in a tiny ball, was a small black dragon.

Heather POV

"Well hello there, where did you come from?" the priestess asked as she kneels down next to the small reptile, her hand reaching out to stroke its scaled wing

grrr

It moved abit, as if being woken up, its tiny slit eyes opened up, at first taking in its surroundings, then it looked at heather, then at her hand which was still touching him, then back to heather.

gnarl

Is snorted as it moved away from her quickly as if it had been scared, its wing slacking and a dried, red substance could be seen reflecting in the sunlight.

"Aww you're hurt, will you let me help it?" she coaxed, kneeling in a still position as not to frighten it once more.

The little dragon gave her a look as if she were crazy, what was she talking about, being 'hurt', and why the 'aww'?

Seto had had enough and was about to turn and just walk away, completely ignoring the female when his foot caught on something and he tripped and fell.

His…..wing?

Since when did he have wings……and why was he suddenly so small compared to the rest of the world?

The girl reached her hand out, as if to touch him, and in a natural reaction he moved backwards, away form her, one step, another and ano-

SPLAT

He had tripped over his large and cumbersome wing and went flying into a pool of dark, thick mud.

"Oh Dear!" heather gasped with concern in her voice as she ran over to help the small creature.

"Are you ok?"

The reptile didn't even acknowledge her as he was so completely embarrassed by his own clumsiness he tried and save what was left of his dignity and walk away, which only made his foot slip, dragging him into more mud.

Sighing slightly Heather jumped up and balanced on some rocks that were right above the mud pit and scooped the little dirty dragon up and out of the mess into her arms, carefully carrying it over to the steady stream she had camped near the night before.

But being part beast Seto did just as his nature told him to, which was to resist at all costs, which meant trying to bite the young priestess' hands.

WHAP

"Bite me and I'll bite back" the brunette girl warned after the backside of her hand made a sharp contact with his snout, making him snort and grunt in protest.

gnarl

The dog-sized dragon responded as his stubby claws held on to his throbbing muzzle, but he was soon facing a challenge which no simple rapping of the mouth would make him submit for: a dip in the stream.

Struggling to get free he slashed at everything around him, cutting the tender skin of Heather's arm in the savage process.

"Ouch!" she yelped, dropping him in the water to cover her bleeding forearm, a simple ball of light instantly repairing and healing it.

It seemed that the shock from the chilly water was enough to make the cold-blooded creature calm down some, long enough for the white-robed female to cast a calming spell on him long enough for her to pick him up and tend to his bloody wing.

Only a few short moments later the limb was all clean and good as new, heather took him as she would a pet and lightly stroked the side of his head, the beast staying very still now, not fighting or struggling at all.

Seto felt warmth, a warmth he could only vaguely remember from long ago, it was soothing and so nice, he couldn't help but start purring just a little bit whilst the sharp pains slowly but surely began to fade away.

"Now, what on earth am I going to do with you hmm?" she thought aloud, well she needed to call him by some sort of name.

Holding him up with both hands and looking him over the girl began gazing at every detail about this abnormal lizard, he was all black, leathery plates of protective armor adorned his body, very few places had actual scales, everything was all pitch black, well, except for those cat-eyes of his, those shown as two bright sapphires glittering in the sunlight, piercing both mind and soul when one would stare into them……..

"I think I will call you…………..Blue" she decided, quite satisfied with herself she returned him to her lap and continued to gently stroke and caress his long plated neck, his eyes closing as she did so, the purring never ceasing.

"Well I see you've changed your tune" she said as she continued to softly pet him.

"I'm…….I'm sorry I smacked you like that Blue…….."

All the dragon did to respond was lean more into her embrace, not even realizing what he was doing, the charming spell keeping him mostly sedated.

Enjoying having the little critter for company she moved her hand down to the side of his front paw, rubbing and massaging it down to where the claws came out, the back up.

"Don't stop" a voice out of nowhere pleaded with her, of course shocking her, which made her stop………blinking in surprise she looked down to her lap to see that none other than the dragon had talked!

"Excuse me? What did you say?" she asked, trying to make sure she wasn't hallucinating.

"Don't stop….it feels……so nice" its mouth was moving and intelligible words were coming out, but she still could hardly believe it……….

"You…you sound like that boy….from last night"


	3. Chapter 3

Leaning back, his foot-long spine stuck out through his scaly skin as he gave her a look before opening his mouth and speaking once more

Leaning back, his foot-long spine stuck out through his scaly skin as he gave her a look before opening his mouth and speaking once more.

"Why wouldn't I sound like the boy from last night?" he asked in a voice which somewhat resembled a snakes hiss. Obviously the reality of him being shapeshifted into a tiny dragon hadn't quite sunk in yet.

"Oh so this is normal for you then……………rather impressive talent I guess, or unless those creatures did this to you……." Heather guessed, taking more time to inspect the small creature before her.

"What the hell are you talking about?" the Kaiba snapped, unknowingly the spines on his back stood as he was getting irritated.

Deciding to clear this confusion, the white priestess boldly picked him up in both hands and held him over the river so that he might see his reflection.

"You turning into this cute little dragon…………it's a good disguise" she tried and calm him, surely no one would take well to being changed so drastically without their knowing.

"What do you me-" that's when he saw the onyx-scaled creature looking back at him In the water

"Oh………my-" the charming spell the healer had placed on him before lost its effectiveness, and in a sudden moment she found herself struggling with a crazed possessed lizard.

"OWW!" she yelped as one of the three razor-sharp claws on his left paw tore through her skin like a freshly-sharpened blade slicing through a thin piece of paper.

"You got some sharp claws there" she said with a reassuring smile, her other hand gracing over the open wound, healing it instantly.

Deciding to try and make the healer a friend rather than an enemy (for out in these dangerous lands having a priest to assist you on ones journeys is to be considered the intellectual thing to do) he made a whimpering noise before sitting on the ground, keeping his claws to himself.

Seeing the way he was staring at the ground she could tell that the little reptile was apologetic, though he wasn't planning on expressing it verbally, slowly she rested her soft hand on the rough, sleek scales of his neck, feeling the long series of bones which made up his extended neck arch into her touch, a cat-like purring following.

Seto didn't know what had gotten into him, why was he reacting this way? He blamed it on animal instincts he had aquired during the transformation and went along with it, besides, the neck rub did feel kinda nice……………….

Closing his eyes he could feel his eyes roll back, his cold-blooded body thoroughly enjoying the warmth from the nearby human caresses.

Feeling completely calm and relaxed, the peace which had found its way into the being know as Seto Kaiba was gone within a moment when his dark scales were suddenly too tight for him.

Pain.

That's all he felt.

Heather stumbled back, using her arms to move backwards as she stared at the strange boys' changing form, a loud scream of pain tore form his throat as within a glow of dark, sickly colored shadows, engulfed him. When the shadows departed, all that was left was a human, his fingers slightly reflexing and a light patterns of scales on his skin which looks as if they were a faded tattoo, slowly the lines becoming more and more faded, until once more his pale white skin was clear of any marks or blemishes.

_Groan._

He dug his fingers into the ground, moaning in pain. The priestess darted to his side, instincts of a healer kicking in, light glowing from her hands as she used a sedating spell to help the pain.

But the power of the pains and the extent of her magic were two very different things, finding her energy suddenly gone, the simple task of breathing became labored. Not knowing that these were the signs of fatigue, and a clear indicator that she should stop and rest, she gave another final push of energy to try and heal the boy before her vision swam and she blacked out.

Landing right across the stomach of the recovering goth boy.

Human knowledge and understanding told him to leave her, rid him of his problems, and keep searching for his younger brother. But gamer knowledge said to stay with her, and make her a member of your group, and use her powers as a healer for your own advantage.

Rolling her off of him and moving himself to leans up against a nearby rock, he took time to absorb his surroundings, his hands still shaking from the painful ordeal.

The way he saw it, these random transformations came with a cost. His health dropped drastically with each one, and if were left unattended during one, the possibility of his death was imminent.

XxxxxxxxXxxxxxxxxxX

At the barracks

A heavy dust arose from the straw which had been laid on the floor of the stables. It was a welcome scent to Lucky Rightbane, who was carrying a light saddle in both arms, the green saddle blanket hanging over her shoulder.

"Good morning Echo" she greeted her favorite horse as she rested his tack on a nearby bench, exchanging her load for a lead rope.

Unlocking the heavy wooden door which kept the chestnut gelding confined in his stall.

The beast pawed at the side of his room with a black hoof, his nostrils blowing warm air onto the orange-haired girls side pocket, looking for a sugary treat.

"Not today boy, if I keep giving you treats for nothing you will get too chubby to ride you silly horse" she told him as she clipped the lead rope to the bottom part of his halter, opening the door and leading him into the walkway, his heavy hoofs making loud noises as they clopped on the stone flooring.

"G'day Lucky, Echo, heading out for a run?" a friendly heavily-accented voice asked, he himself leading his brown-haired mount behind him.

"Yea, you just get in?" she asked as she tied the rope to a ring in the wall, securing the horse in place before she began to give him a brush down.

"Yep, be careful about the East trail, there was a messy rockslide last night and the path is completely blocked, believe me we tried, thus the reason we're headed to the washrooms" he said as he indicated his mud-soaked clothes and mount.

"Ahh" she replied back, setting the brush down and taking out a thin-toothed comb.

Awhile later she tossed the blanket over Echo's back, making sure it was leveled equally on each side before trying to heave the heavy sadly up on the tall beasts' shoulders.

Grunting as she struggled with the cumbersome piece of tack, suddenly her heavy armful of leather was lightened as a taller man with short, blonde hair lifted it off her hands and up onto the quarter-horses back.

"Thanks Raphael" she chirped, reaching under Echo's large stomach to catch the strap to secure the saddle to him.

"Just ask for help when doing that, wouldn't want you to get pinned under it and Ty having our heads for it"

"Yahyahyah….." the youngest Rightbane muttered, snapping the right clips and hooks into place, removing the halter and replacing it with the bridle.

Buckling the headpiece on and tossing the reins over Echo's head, and with a tiny boost from her friend Raphael, Lucky was mounted and on her way, leaving the stables behind as the fast beast released its pent-up energy, wanting so badly to make a run for it, but the pre-teen holding the reins wouldn't allow it.

Not yet anyway.

Taking her Aussie pal's advice and avoiding the blocked trail, she took the northern route, planning on riding to the borders the cutting around through the forest until she reach the west path and would follow that back to base.

Releasing the strain on the reigns, and giving Echo a light nudge to his sides, she tightened her knees, propped herself up, and let him run.

Trees and bushes were no more than green and brown blurs, Echo might have been small but he was fast, his stride as smooth and steady as if the were running on air.

Past the fields filled with golden wheat, past the aromatic apple orchard, the length of the barracks property was so far and wide that it was like a tiny city inside its walls. It had its own defense, food supply, water springs, hunting grounds, what more could it need?

Closing her eyes, trusting the horse beneath her to keep on the path, Lucky took in this intoxicating feeling of pure freedom, there was something about being on the back of one of these magnificent beasts that gave one a care-free sense, but like all good things, she knew it would end all too soon.

The warmth of the sun being blocked out by the shade of the overhanging trees, she held up on the reigns to slow Echo down to a trot, the area was nice and peaceful, but small, deep holes in the dirt road made by nature would mean a very bad day for both horse and rider if he had a hoof get caught in one at high speeds.

Knowing there was a nearby stream she could stop at and rest Echo, and to eat the snack she had brought along in her knapsack.

Riding echo was her everyday life nowadays, but she was enjoying it while she still could because she had finally convinced Ty to let her train and become a soldier at the barracks, making her the only female soldier there, heck, she was already the only girl in the entire fortification.

Getting excited about her upcoming lessons, she not only missed the stop for the stream, she also didn't notice how skittish the horse had suddenly become, his hooves making quiet, slow-beating clops on the road.

Finally she realized that they had practically come to a full stop, she nudged Echo in his sides with her ankles to encourage him to move it.

Nothing. He refused to move.

"Echo, what's wrong boy?" she asked as she leaned over, hand rubbing his neck as his ears were pinned forward, breath heavily releasing from his flared nostrils.

Leaning back up and looking around and the dense forest around her, the hairs on her neck stood up as she sensed the same eerie feeling Echo had been halted by.

They were being watched.

XxxxxxxxxXxxxxxxX

It wasn't until a couple of long hours later that the priestess began to stir. Having built a fire for the evening and was exhausted from his earlier ordeal, Seto couldn't help but stare as she slowly woke up.

'What is she after, why is she helping me? No one is nice to anyone unless there's something in it for them……..' he thought to himself as the girl slowly opened her eyes, trying to lean herself up but found it a difficult task as she was much too weak.

"It's better if you stay down for awhile, you exhausted your energy supply" he stated, knowing all too well the mechanics of the game.

"So that's why I feel so dizzy" she muttered before letting herself lay back down, relieved to see that the strange boy was no longer in pain.

But she noticed that he seemed to be worried about something, as if there was something in the back of his mind that wouldn't go away.

"What's wrong? What are you worried about?" the brunette girl asked as she turned on her side to face the fire.

Glancing up at her, he didn't know just what to say. How had she known……..

"You have a small crease line right here" she said as she indicated a certain part of her forehead "It indicates worry"

Seto groaned, he didn't like being pestered like this, especially by complete strangers, but maybe, just maybe, she could help.

"My brother, I…………I don't know where he is" he mumbled softly, not used to this whole 'share your problems' concept.

"You have a brother? How old is he?" the priestess asked as she sat up, suddenly very interested in their newest and not to mention first mission: finding this strange boy's brother.

"Only eleven, last time I saw him he was being chased by those……………things"

"He's eleven and on his own?! We have got to find him! ……………I mean, I could help……..if you want me to Blue"

"SETO! MY NAME IS SETO!" he snapped, sick of her calling him by that nick-name

"Well Seto I'm Heather, now that that's out of the way, let's go find your brother" she informed him as she struggled to stand, still rather weak from her fizzled energy supply.

"Where to start" Seto muttered, bringing himself to his feet as well. "The virtual world is just as large –if not larger- than the real world, he could be anywhere"

"Following the stream would be a good start"

"What?"

"All water leads to the ocean, and I happen to know that there's a port town on the coast, it would be a good place for you to get your bearings" Heather said as she looked at the flowing stream, slinging her pack over her shoulder.

"Lead the way" he said as he held out a hand, walking beside her as they both walked along the ocean-bound water source.

"Can you remember anything from before you were taken? Like where you were or what kind of terrain it was? Anything would help"

"Some old ruins, me and Mokuba were camping there for the night when we were ambushed by the demons, but even that place was far away from the nearest town, only reason we didn't spend all night hiking was because we rode my drag- wait a second" he stopped walking and talking altogether as he searched his pockets.

"Dammit, those freaks must have taken it while I was passed out"

"Taken what? What were you looking for?" she questioned, looking back at him from a few feet off.

"The whistle, it summons a riding dragon, if I still had it things would go by SO much faster"

"Well, looks like we are walking, unless of course you turn into that winged demon again, or maybe even that cute little black dragon-"

"Let's get one thing straight-" he interrupted her, arms folded.

"I don't know how the hell I changed into that pathetic little ………….thing, but I have no intentions whatsoever of doing it again!"

"Watch your mouth or I will be washing it out with soap!" she retorted, tired of his loose tongue around a lady.

"Psh, ya right, like to see a girl try" he muttered the last part, totally not expecting what his companion did next.

"HEY THIS GIRL SAVED YOUR LIFE AND YOU HAVEN'T THANKED ME ONCE!" she yelled, getting right up in his face, her voice echoing off the mountains, frightened flocks of birds leaving their perches in the old, dying trees.

Last thing the British girl saw of him his eyes had widened and a black flash of shadow-power exploded where he stood, when the smoke cleared none other sat on the ground than the little black dragon.

"You only did that to shut me up, didn't you?" she asked, her arms folded

"Believe me, if I could control it, I would"

"Well I think you're cute, think you can fly?"

Spreading his awkward black wings he tried jumping into the air and moving them in a bird-like motion, only to be rewarded with a rough 'thud' to the ground.

"I guess that's a no…" the priestess sighed as she bent down, offering her arms for her to carry him.

"I am perfectly capable of walking" he grunted as he stood on his paws, rather embarrassed about the bad landing.

"Why are you so short with me?" she asked, returning her arms to the crossed position. "All I did was save you from being torn to shreds by blood-thirsty demons"

"I have everything under control, and I don't need some _females_ help to do anything" he answered with a snort.

"Well I don't need some pathetic little uptight male/demon/dragon who can't even fly to burden me!" she yelled angrily before turning and walking away in a heated mood.

"My thoughts exactly" he muttered as he continued to walk in the opposite direction the girl had, muttering to himself the faults and problems of those blasted females.

Meanwhile, in all her rage the priestess was stomping through the uncharted forest ground, not a good idea when the ground is wet at the edges of the road.

"Arrogant hard-headed fool! All I wanted to do is to help his ungrateful little scaly butt- AAAHHHH!!" she screamed as she slipped down into the ravine, rolling down the dirt and leaves which decorated the nature-made walls until she hit the bottom. The tree roots and stubs which broke her fall were sure to leave bruises.

Slowly recovering and propping herself up with an arm, she looked around at her surrounding, it was like she was in a deep ditch, she could probably use a root or a vine to crawl out if she found a good spot. Plenty of trees line the edge of the ditch, making for good climbing.

But that is when she realized that everything in the forest was suddenly quiet, well, unfortunately not all quiet.

Sitting still she listened closely and heard the sound of deep, nasal breathing. Looking behind herself she saw a cave opening in the side of the dirt wall, and two pairs of glowing eyes were staring at her.

One clawed foot stepped out into the light, the four eyes belonged to one creature. Its skin was a dirty green and brown color, patches of hair all over its body were tangled and messy with moss and fungus growing out of its folds.

Its teeth resembling that of a pirahna, thin but razor-sharp, it growled openly at heather, drool sliding down its jaws in a most disgusting manner.

'It' was a forest demon. Something that terrified travelers had only told heather about when she was learning her basic priestess training when she first entered this world. Looking back she was a fool to have thought that the travelers were just trying to frighten her.

But right now she was more than just frightened, she was downright terrified! Her body frozen with fear, cold sweat dripping down her forehead. There was only one reaction her mind could think of.

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Her scream echoed through the forest, making a few heads of some birds turn and catching the attention of a certain hexed young man.

Preparing to pounce on another protruding stone which was his only path across a rapidly-flowing river, Seto looked back to where the noise came from. Without even thinking about it he recognized the scream and bolted in its direction. Why he did this? Who knows.

Going as fast as his clawed dragon paws would take him, he bounded in the direction of the continuing screams for help until he came to a ledge by the road. Peering over he saw a forest demon circling the girl, his plans to make her his next meal were rather obvious to the black whelp.

Not even taking a moment to think it through he jumped from the edge and held out his wings, gliding right on top of the beast which threatened Heather's virtual life.

Knowing he needed to distract it somehow, he made a desperate move and took its mange-ridden ear into his mouth and bit down. Hard. Dragon fangs inflicting their designed pain as the leathery piece of flesh would soon be separated from its owner if he bit down much harder.

Yelping in pain the monster took its scythe-clawed paw and swiped at the intruder on its back, tossing, turning, and even rolling trying to get it off.

Her senses slowly returning to her the brunette girl finally remembered how to summon up an attack, her hands still shaking too much to get a good spell casted off.

Finally, in a blind rage the creature reached over its shoulder and grabbed the little wyrm, sinking its claws into it and flinging it across the ditch into the base of a tree.

Returning its attention back to its meal, the forest demon looked back in heather's direction just in time to see its imminent death coming straight for it. A powerful blast of light hit him square between the eyes, making his entire body explode with the impact, its insides and guts were flung every which way in a revolting and stinky mess.

After closing her eyes for a moment, recovering from the shock of what she had just done, the girl looked in the direction she had seen her little scaled friend been thrown. With much horror she saw him lying in an awkward position, its leg was bent in the wrong way and he was not moving.

Covering her mouth as she gasped at the site of him, she kneeled down and took the little reptile into her arms, holding him on his back as she rested her hand on his narrow chest, feeling nothing but cold through his onyx scales.

_Gnarl_

It was his only sign of life as he slowly began to come around, his long, lanky neck swung back and forth as he regained his muscle control. When Seto was officially awake he did not have much to say at all, he very well knew what he had done and what had happened, and he for one did not know how to explain himself.

"Here, let me take a look at your leg" the healer broke the silence as a free hand ever so gently held the smashed limb loosely in her palm.

The moment she did this he shrunk back, growling in pain, this had so not been his day and it was only getting worse.

"Shh, shh, let me see it" she calmly murmured, gently retaking it into her hand, wincing as she realized how much pain the poor little dragon must be in.

A small ball of mystical white light shone from Heather's hand and skimmed over the midnight-black scales of the injured leg. His neck bending over her arm as she did this, it was a sign that he was feeling the strange sensation of the re-mending of the muscles, tissues, and bones of his foot, a good sign nonetheless.

After the magic was finished doing its work she wrapped it gently with bandages to make sure he didn't strain or infect it, the silence between them stayed until she was finished and went back to just plainly holding him in her arms, she absentmindedly stroking his scaled head as he subconsciously purred, much like that of a cat, to the feeling.

"Does it feel any better?" she asked trying to break silence and make conversation.

"Yes, much better…..thank you" he struggled with the last two words, but she had healed him multiple times now and even he felt that she deserved it.

"You……you came back…..to me….and you rescued me……why?" she wanted to know the answer to her question, it would had seemed that he really had not cared anything abut her before, why did he come back and save her?

"Just……just think of it as repayment……for yesterday" he answered, referring to how she had sheltered him from the monsters chasing him.

After awhile of just sitting there, in awkward silence, this time it was the little dragon who spoke up.

"We should really get going and find a nearby village or town, it's getting late, and all the dangerous stuff comes out at night"

he finished saying right before a loud, booming roar could be heard off in the distance.

"Agreed" standing, Heather held the cat-sized whelp in her arms with her pack over her shoulder, she walked to that same river they had camped near before.

But they faced another problem once they reached it: which way to the beach?

Sure, following downstream would eventually lead to the white shores on the edge of this dark forest, but these waterworks tended to wind around and take the long route to their end.

Hopping from the priestess' arms, Seto landed on the dirt with three paws, being careful of his injured foot, and made his way to the base of a nearby tree.

"I'll be right back" he muttered as he dug his claws into the bark, getting a firm hold on it.

"And just what are you doing?" she couldn't help but worry a bit, only being able to use three of four feet while trying to climb a tree might prove a little too…….difficult for the teen.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine" reassuring his assumedly virtual companion he scooted right up, deep into the withering leaves of the tall object. Several minutes later he came back down, a vine with several pieces of fruit on it that had been growing on the elm in his jaws.

"I can see the cove, it's that way" pointing a claw to the east as the girl took the fruits from his mouth and placed them in her pouch, saving them for their journey.

X.x.x.x.x.X.x.x.x.x.x.X

(Mokuba POV)

It's been over a week game-time since my brother and I were separated. I fear for both his safety and my own as I daily return to the ruins, hoping he'll come back someday and meet me here.

But once again I approach the old, stone buildings and am greeted with loneliness, my only company is the wildlife near here.

Slinging my pack against one of the ancient walls I sit next to it and rest me head on my knees, prepared to wait until darkness falls before returning to the town.

_SCREEEE!_

My head shoots up as I heard high-pitched sounds of pain coming from another part of the outside entrance. Jumping to my feet I ran over, only to see a golden eagle, hoping on the ground with a hurt wing.

It seems something else had attacked it but it had managed to escape, always being the one to hate seeing any animal suffer, I slowly reach a hand out to it.

Instead of hurridly hopping away or trying to bite me with its sharp beak, instead it looked straight at me, as if deciding what to do. Finally it actually moved right up to my hand and pounced right into it, thankfully I had been wearing sleeves that day, and his talons didn't tear my skin to shreds.

"Hey little guy, you must be hand-tame, who's your owner?" I asked him, not really expecting any kind of answer at all.

It stayed on my wrist as I went back to my sitting spot, I was sure that his owner was probably looking for him and might appreciate it if I kept his injured pet in one spot.

Bringing up a careful hand I stroked its feathers on its chest and back, though it didn't seem to enjoy it, only tolerate it, as is expected from a bird of its species I guess.

"I wish I were a bird, then I could fly around and look for my nii-san from the skies" I muttered, talking to no one in particular.

But the moment after that, when I rested my hand on his back to run my fingers along his soft feathers, there was a hazy flash of light, and everything went black for me as I was knocked unconscious.

By the time I woke up again, the sun was beginning to set, and the bird was, as expected, gone. Sighing as for some reason I felt very tired and weary I quickly ran to the ruins and grabbed my pack before making a run for the village, not wanting to be caught outside the gates after nightfall, especially with these dark clouds out, seems like if I didn't hurry I'd be caught in the rain, something I don't look forward to in these unpredictable lands.

X.x.x.x.x.x.X.x.x.x.x.x.x.X

Shadow Forest

_In her dream she was being held under the water, every gasp of air she managed was only a painfully large gulp of liquid as her body soon tired and started to drown…………_

Opening her eyes, heather looked around to see that her frightful dream had been caused by rain, and lots of it. Her clothes were soaked, and her hair was matted to her head, filled with mud and leaves. Leaning up she rest her hands on the ground next to her, and felt thick substance flowing between her fingers, it was mud, and lots of it.

_A landslide_

Next to her, the cursed boy laid undisturbed, his body having returned back to its normal state as he slept. She reached over and began trying to shake him awake, but even in the mere seconds it took to do that the muddy water has risen to almost overtake her legs.

Seto awoken, and spitting out mud he stood, his longer legs holding better in the rushing waves that the preistess' did, as her attempts to get up were foiled by her lack of strength and grip.

Uphill, a bolt of lightning hit an old, deteriorating tree. Splitting it from its trunk, the old mast of wood tipping over, and propelled by the rushing brown water started moving sideways downhill, straight in the direction of the two teens.

Hearing the loud crack and seeing the blinding light, they both looked up to see the huge object barreling towards the. Thinking quickly the Kaiba reached up and barely seized an over-hanging branch of a tree, his assumingly virtual companion still on her knees, struggling to stand.

Once he wrapped an arm around the limb, he looked back down at Heather, if he didn't do something, she would be crushed, literally, thus jeapordizing his own safety, for without her holy abilities, he wouldn't survive these transformations.

"Grab my hand!" he yelled through the storm, a pale, bony hand reaching towards her. She looked up, to reach it she would have to stand, and her struggle against the current was too much for her.

Taking out brush and limbs the Oak was still coming at them, Seto tried to stretch as he could but she was far from his reach, in a desperate move she used all her strength to jump, her hand seizing his right as the enormous piece of wood was only yards from smashing into her. In a flash of dark, thick shadows the air pressure suddenly drastically changed for the girl, as her newfound friend had transformed into his freakish winged form and had taken to the rain-filled skies, they now hovered many many feet above the thick and rugged forest. The threat of the tree long gone as it harmlessly continued down the hill, mud, roots, and leaves all catching themselves on it as it floated on by.

Still catching her breath, heather ignored the pain in her hand from the tight grip as the beast held on to her, his large, leathery wings methodically beating, trying to stay in a hover, his pain was greatly expressed through the cringe on his face.

Slowly they descended into the safety of a sturdy tree whose limbs stretched far and wide. He let her go when she had a secure hold on the tree before he too kneeled down on its massive branch, his breathing heavy and raspy, his skin bloody and red from the stretch and the appearance of his horns and wings.

Catching her composure she quickly went to him, her hand slighting up with bright colored light, being sure not to physically touch him she hovered her hands above his skin, the healing was sewing his skin back up, returning the blood to where it had come from.

Seeing that his body was already recovering and receding back into its normal form, she continued the light heals as his mind was still in a daze.

Finally his body returned to normal, his breathing still ragged but not so rapid and wheezy.

"Are you alright?" she asked, daring to touch his elbow as she carefully balanced on the oversized tree limb.

All he did to answer her was look up at her, his tired eyes meeting hers for a brief moment before returning back down.

"We can not stay out here all night, we need to push on to town" she said as she looked around, rain pouring everywhere, the lightning's whip cracking the ground constantly throughout the storm.

If he heard her, he didn't show it, but he did look around at the ground, the flooding was not so extreme here, if they were careful, they would be able to walk there. Sliding off the side of the limb, his feet hit the mud with a splash, his arm holding his stomach as his breathing was for the moment painful.

Glancing back up into the tree, he invited her down to join him, knowing that the sooner they left the better, Heather quickly took the safer route and climbed down the trunk before dashing over to meet Seto, if there hadn't been any fiber of her white robes that were stained with mud, there was nothing clean to be found now.

Being sure to stay close behind the dragon boy, or so she had come to nickname him in the confides of her mind, she kept a look out for any signs of life as they walked along, the rain was still falling from the dark sky, but not quite as heavily as it had before.

After traveling through the thick woods and harsh, slick terrain, they eventually came to a man-made clearing through the woods. A trade road, and according to the signposts, it led straight to the town on the shores of the Ever-Deep Ocean.

Now following the path, the pair walked on silently, not that they could have even had a conversation of any kind with this accursed rain drowning all sounds from the ears, but eventually, after a long while, they did hear something through the pounding torrent of earth-bound water.

The clip-clop of horse hooves.

Looking over his shoulder, the Kaiba saw that there was a horse-drawn wagon coming their way, he wanted to keep walking, the least contact and communication he had to have with people the better, or so was his general rule which had kept to faithfully for many of his years.

But the priestess had other idea, touching his wrist she made him stop, she knew they were both exhausted and were going to become ill in these conditions if they didn't get to town soon.

Thankfully, the good-hearted traveler pulled his team to a stop, resting right beside the companions.

"You kids need a ride?" his older, gruff voice asked, the water pouring off the cow-hide brim of his hat.

"Please, my friend is hurt, we need to get to the city" she kindly asked, her natural politeness and charm, though unneeded, appealed to the aged farmer.

"Say no more little lady, I'm heading there as well, hop right in to my wagon, we'll get there shortly" he stated as he tied the reigns to the seat, hopping down to help the young woman and her friend to get situated in the back before continuing on his way.


	4. Chapter 4

When the wagon came to a stop two very muddy teens slid out of the back, the female in the now soaked, tainted white robes thanked the old man for his generosity as he went on his way. The rain still poured outside, but at least in town the chances of runaway mudslides were much less than out there in the middle of a God-forsaken forest.

"We need to find a place to stay the night" the demon boy commented as he turned to go into the city, the white priestess automatically following him through the towns' iron gates and brick grounds. This city was not by any means a slums area, but nor was it the palace fortress of Light's Way. Looking down at her feet, the girl bit her lip as she followed him. Being a priestess of the temple meant that in the way of finance, things would never come quite as 'luxurious' to them as it could others, besides, the pack provided for players at the beginning of the event had been torn from her side during their brush with death back in that mud-filled grave. Having to release her lip from between her teeth she felt a wave of embarrassment as she told him through the pouring rain.

"I, um, do not have any money now….my coin purse was lost back there" she tried to continue as she wrung her hands like wet clothing from the wash. As his head turning from side to side as he caught his bearings of this city, Seto did not look her way when he spoke to her, his tone making it sound as if it were no big deal, which to him being a prepared gamemaster, it was not.

"It's fine, I have unlimited gold here. Come this way, the town square is over here and usually the towns were designed to have most of the inns and boarding houses around that part of town." She followed him down relatively clean streets, only in the occasional alleyway or dark area did one see any large rodents, even then the small pests would run from one's view.

Finally they made it to a large open area in the city where a giant oak tree grew right in the center. They had apparently tried many years ago to build some sort of short stone barrier around its base to both protect the old landmark and to provide shade and seating to the travelers and citizens of Blackwood, as there were stone benches still around the base. From this spot one could see the defense hall, butcher shops, the armory, a bakery, a weaponry, and several inns.

Walking up to one of the overnight houses Heather looked up at it with amazement and wonder. It had a beautiful wood exterior with garden trays under every window, even through the rain and muck it still managed to look lively and attractive.

She stayed right behind the teen boy as they walked in, this place was very nice and look at them, they seemed so very raggy…………

"Good afternoon Sir, miss, come to escape the weather have you?" asked a cheery man behind the register.

"Good guess, do you have two rooms available?" he asked as Heather looked around, wooden carvings built right in, fireplaces, a nice eating room, she almost hoped the man would say no.

"I'm sorry but it seems that every traveler and adventurer for fifty-miles 'round has come here to escape the elements it seems, but we do have one honeymoon suite that has not been booked yet if you like" he said with a smile looking back and forth between the pair.

"Maybe we should try somewhere else….." the white priestess suggested, she didn't want to force thus young man to put up with her…………..

"Nowhere else will be vacant either, it's always the more expensive places that fill up last, alright we will take it and send for a armor merchant to come up" the blue-eyed boy took the keys from the elderly gentleman and walked up the stairs, the holy girl behind him every step of the way.

"Go ahead and clean up, the shower is over there" he motioned to his left as he walked inside of their suite, Heather was still standing in shock at the doorway, this room was huge….and gorgeous, whoever designed this place put a nice modern touch to the rooms, at least this one did with its running water and electricity………

"Are you sure? I don't want you to get sick" when he shook his head she took his advise and went to the tiled shower, where she fell in love with the nice hot water.

Seto stared out the window at the pouring rain. He had never thought of himself to be one for babysitting game characters, which he had no doubt in his mind that that was all this healer was, nothing more than some information in a computer. But to find someone skilled in the holy arts was a rarity, one that was willing to stay and help you, that was incredible, and he would need all the help he could get if he was to find his younger brother.

The knock on the door signaled that the armor merchant had arrived, unlocking the door he began to take measurements for some better-fitting clothing for his travels. When the shower room opened steam poured out in clouds, Heather stepping out in only a short bathrobe, getting the attention of both men in the room.

"Ah, you must be the young priestess you told me to wait upon sir" the balding man pulling out his measuring string as he stepped towards her. The gamemaster was grabbing a fresh towel and robe from the rack to go clean himself, his freshly made set of black scaled armor, it was flexible but tough, exactly what he might be needing, rest on the floor in a neat pile, ready for him when he returned from the shower.

"Young Lady might I be as bold as to say that your beauty rivals that of the many stars in the sky" He suavely kissed the top of her hand as he bowed before her, making her cheeks tint pink. She noticed that he held her mud-soaked robes folded over his forearm, apparently he had retrieved it during her shower, thankfully there had been a screen between the shower and the rest of the restroom.

"Umm, I'm confused…….why do you have my clothes? I kind of need them…" she said shyly, not quite sure of what was happening.

"I needed to take a look to get a good idea of your measurements and body type, I see that I need to make something light yet tough" he stuck his hand through a ragged hole in the fabric, the item was ravaged in that mudslide…………

"I'll have them ready for you before the hour is out" He gave a half-bow before returning to his bag of supplies, pulling out different kinds of fabrics to find just what she would require to face the wilds of this volatile world.

"But I can't afford any of this mister…." She tried to explain, she would of hated for him to of gone through all that trouble for nothing………

"It is no bother priestess, the man whom summoned me up here is paying for everything" he kept looking at samples of fabric as she sat down on the couch carefully, this was all very new to her and frankly she did not really know what to do, if her father knew she was in this situation it would send him to an early grave.

The Barracks

Lucky wiped the sweat on her forehead off on her sleeve. They had survived the assault with few casualties, thankfully none of them real people. Now over ten pyres made of the corpses of the demons were scattered about the barracks yard, her job was to make sure they all stayed burning powerfully, something that was harder to do than it sounded.

"Will they come back?" she asked as a tall blonde wearing plate armor walked up from behind to hand her a fresh water skin.

"I don't know Luck, staying prepared for anything is our best defense" her older brother knew that she would see through any kind of comforting, she always had.

BlackWood

*~The Golden Anchor Inn~*

The British girl looked at herself in the wall-length mirror. The white and blue robes fit her perfectly, she looked like something out of a story book. The tailor even made her new leather packs and shoes, made from the pure white skins of albino stags from the neighboring forest, a rarity rumored to possessive magical properties.

The Shape-shifter had finished his bath and suited up, sitting comfortably on the couch in the new dark dragon scales.

"You've done a good job merchant, you may go now" He paid his dues and sent the short man on his way, eventually he stood up and walked to the door. "Stay here, I'm going to go look for my brother, the key is on the counter if you absolutely must go out" without giving her a chance to respond he left the room.

She waited for fifteen minutes before filling her fresh new packs with her supplies before heading out. There was no way she was going to stay cooped up in this room, even if it was quite luxurious.

Locking the door behind her she slipped the silvery key into her glistening white pack, being sure to keep her hand over the satchel to prevent any pick-pocketing she went downstairs and out the door where though the rain had stopped the humidity made her feel already damp.

Blackwood

*~Salty Scale Pier~*

Mokuba hung his legs over the edge of the wooden dock as he watched the ships come in and go out. So far this game had been a disappointment as far a she was concerned, considering it had been rumored that this event was going to top all games ever made, so far he had had more fun playing chess than he had had in here.

Squinting his eyes as he looked out he saw the fins of dolphins as two of them glided through the water, every few seconds coming up for air. Looking over the edge of the dock he saw some crabs skittering around near the oyster-infested wooden beams, the tiny ones running for cover as the older ones scavenged for a quick meal. If there was one thing he did appreciate about this virtual fantasy land, it was the extreme attention to every last detail.

Hearing footsteps vibrating through the pier he turned his head around and looked over his shoulder to see who or what it was, gasping in surprise when he recognized the familiar face.

_The Northern Star_

Jeremy stared out at the incoming town as the ship gently rocked on the waves as they went in to dock. They had come in to sell their treasures that filled their hulls to the fill at the local auction block.

His black and white strands of hair blew in the salty wind as seagulls squawked around him, resting his arms on the railing at he watched the tiny dots that were the villagers and towns peoples, maybe even some real players were in town this time.

Suddenly someone came from behind him and leaned against his smaller body, pushing him up against the side of the boat. He froze, knowing exactly who it was, all he had wanted was to come up from the cabin and get some fresh air……….why did this have to happen……..

"Cade….please…no" he stuttered as he closed his eyes tightly, he should have known better than to think that anything would make him stop, even for a little while.

"How can you deny me? You look so perfect out here in the light my love" the blonde-haired pervert held his arms around the young boy, talking into his ear that no one else may hear. He tried to escape and get away but the breath was taken from his lungs as he was pushed against the railing harder by the second-in-command. His squirming turned into writhing as Cade's hand intruded and touched the cold skin of his pale stomach, Jeremy went into a panic, not wanting this to happen he felt cool tears fall down his cheeks when thankfully, the attempted assault ended with a harsh voice.

"Cade!" the moment the name left his older brothers mouth he felt Cades hold weaken and took the opportunity to run away from him as fast as his legs could take him to where Jake was.

"I'll just be going" The pedophile turned to walk away before he was stopped by the angry red-head.

"Don't even think about it…………Jeremy, go get ready to go into town and gather supplies, I need to deal with this…….." his arms folded he kept his glare on Cade as his little brother ran down below deck.

When the ships came into the harbor Jeremy was the first one off. Still able to feel that mans cold breath…..his vile touch….he ran just to try and escape the feel of his presence on his body.

Blackwood Town Bazaar

Heather walked through the streets, looking at the people selling their goods and wares, she couldn't get over how real this all felt. Without any warning she felt herself being knocked to the ground as something shorter than she ran into her from behind.

Picking herself up after the fall she looked around and saw that the culprit was nothing more than a child.

"Oh I'm sorry, are you hurt?" she asked, helping him pick up his dropped items. "I-I-I'm fine, thanks" were his only words as he looked from side to side in a paranoid way before continuing to run off, hopefully being more careful of where he went.

The brunette sighed as she looked around, she had been gone for awhile and wanted to check in with that Seto boy, spotting a corner sign showing the way to the town square she backtracked through crowded streets to make her way back to the Inn.

~*The Golden Anchor Inn~*

-Honeymoon Suite-

The silver key in her hand she heard the bolt in the door release, allowing her entry as she pulled the metal trinket out and placed it in her pack once more. Turning on the lights she picked up a strange piece of fruit from the bowl on the counter, recalling having seen another priestess back at the temple eating one similar to it she took a bite into the sweet Toad Fruit, named for its bumpy surface and green flesh on the inside. That's when she noticed the presence of someone else in the room, and it wasn't the game master.

It was a teenage kid with long black hair and tanned skin, his clothing seemed to resemble the same style as Seto's before that friendly tailor had visited.

"Umm, hello?" she asked quietly, unsure if he was asleep as he laid on the couch, but purple eyes opened at the question before going wide.

"WHO ARE YOU?!" he asked almost as if she were an intruder of sorts.

"I…umm…" she could not find words before the demon-cursed teen came into the room.

"Ah, you two have met, Mokuba this is Heather, a priestess I came across in the Forest, Heather that's Mokuba, my brother." He said casually as he went to the kitchen, looking for some sort of caffeine, coffee preferably.

"It is a pleasure to finally meet you" she said with a bow. "Your brother was so worried about you, I'm happy you found each other"

"It's nice to meet you too, but I have to ask" He started as he left the couch and went to the counter as he watched his brother search the cabinets. "Why is there a pretty girl staying in your hotel room?" he asked with a hint of playfulness in his voice.

"I tried for two rooms, all filled, hopefully there will be a few open rooms before nightfall" He said as he moved some stuff around, finding nothing to satiate his craving. "That's it, I'm heading out"

Blackwood Square Bakery

Mokuba held a straw hand-basket in his arms as he followed the priestess through the shop, Seto had told them to shop for food while he searched for the local café, surely this ancient-style world wouldn't dare deprive him of mans greatest accomplishment of discovering coffee. Filled with his natural childlike curiosity, he took the opportunity to ask her questions while they shopped through the stands with fruit and cheese in the center of the shop.

"So, how did you two meet again?" he added a few pieces of bright colored fruit to the basket, apparently knowing what they were.

"Well I was rather lost in a dead area of the woods near here when I saw him being chased by some monsters, so I helped him and we decided to team up" She decided to let him pick out everything seeing he had more knowledge about this worlds' food than she did.

"That's cool I guess, never imagined my brother being the type to befriend just anyone" He said as he finished off the load with a solid load of white bread and went to the counter to pay.

"Well I think his decision was based on the fact that I'm a healer, but I'm glad he did, who knows what might have happened in that storm back there if he hadn't." She found herself carrying the food as they left the shop, she following the inquisitive teen to the nearby butcher shop, he knew what would be needed.

"Well……what are we going to go do now? Now that I'm here, were you guys going to go one some epic quest or something?" He looked up at the variety of meats and organs that the merchant had for sale, picking out one and asking the butcher to slice it for them.

"I don't know, but if your brother does decide to go anywhere, I'll gladly come along if I'm welcome" she carried the basket as he carried the paper-wrapped meat as they made their way back to the inn room to drop their groceries off before meeting Seto down at the harbor.

X..x.x.x.x.x.x.x.X

Her footfalls echoed as she walked down the stretch of wooden dock, she could see Mokuba already standing outside the cabin, his older brother must be inside haggling with the vendor for supplies, not that he needed to argue on prices, it was just how these traders liked doing business.

As the brunette came closer, she heard a small noise above the sounds of the salty water slapping against the sides of the docked ships and the beams of the pier. It sounded like muffled crying or begging, being curious she looked around and walked towards the direction of the soft sounds coming from a worn-down shack on the land-side of the boardwalk.

When Heather turned the corner of the tiny storage building her eyes widened in shock and anger, the noises were coming from the young boy she had bumped into earlier, but there was a much larger, blonde-haired man pinning him to the rough wooden wall, touching him……….indecently.

"LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!!" she yelled, holy energy streaming from her fingertips, all purely fueled by her ferocity towards the pedophile. Her fist went flying in a ball of bright white light, hitting the surprised man square in the side of his shoulder, sending him flying.

By now some people were looking their way, Seto and Mokuba of which were running towards her to see what had happened.

"Bitch!!" Cade screamed as he jumped to his feet, grabbing for his mace to retaliate the blow.

"HOLD IT!!" another male voice could be heard from nearby, everyone looked towards his direction as the dragon-boy came up from behind Heather, touching her arm he asked what the hell was going on in his eyes.

"Cade, go back to the ship" the red-haired teen ordered, his arms folded.

"But-" the blonde pervert stuttered.

"But nothing, go NOW" grumbling, the child molester walked away, keeping a weary eye on the white priestess, the pain in his shoulder now making itself evident as he struggled up the way to the ship.

Ignoring the red-haired guy who broke up the soon-to-be brawl, she leaned down next to the shivering and shaking child, his eyes were wide in fear and amazement, had she really just saved him from that hell which only Cade could inflict upon him?

"Hey sweetie, are you alright?" trying to calm him down she touched his arm that was wrapped around his legs, he flinched at first but his teary brown eyes were now looking up at her.

"Anyone gonna tell me what that was all about?" the boy standing behind her folded his arms, none too happy about being left out of the loop.

"It's okay sweetheart, no ones gonna hurt you now…." She didn't move her hand, she just let it rest softly on top of Jeremy's, wanting so badly just to calm him down.

"You okay kid?" Jake asked from where he stood, not seeming sincerely concerned for the welfare of the child.

"You know him?" Seto asked looking in his direction as Heather was working on him.

"Yeah I know him, he's my younger brother, who are you?" his voice almost sounded accusing.

"Then why the hell are you just standing there? And who in Gods' name was that….that monster!" now it was the British girls' turn for questions as she looked over her shoulder at him.

"Since when is it any of your business?" he became instantly defensive about the sensitive subject.

"Since this poor kid is being assaulted by that creep and you did practically nothing!" her fierceness took everyone back, it became clear she wasn't the all-passive priestess to be walked all over that they had first assumed.

"I got him to leave didn't I?!" at this point she was ready to stand up and give him a piece of her mind, but a hoarse, teary voice kept her there.

"P-please….please stop yelling….." his eyes were downcast as his hair overshadowed his face.

"It's okay sweetie, we'll stop" she began to rub the pale skin of his hand, the calming effect of it was evident.

"I know its sudden, but I cant have peace of mind if we leave him here where that bastard can get near him" she said, her voice completely calmed back down for Jeremy's benefit. "Hey kiddo……would you like to come along with us?"

"What?" both Seto and Jake said at the same time in surprise.

"Would that be alright?" she asked his elder brother, all things considered she didn't exactly consider his child-watching skills anygood but it was only polite to ask.

"-sigh- whatever the kid wants I guess, the less pains in my ass the better" Jake had a dismissive tone, though deep down he hoped that she would take the kid off his hands.

The black-and-white-haired child was silent for a moment, his head in his knees, but after a moment he made up his mind, and that was that traveling with complete strangers would be better than staying near Cade.

"I-I w-would like t-that…..i-is it o-okay?" he stuttered out his words as the streams of tears on his face began to dry up.

"Of course sweetie, of course it is alright" she gently rubbed his back, he seemed comfortable with her now.

Jake turned and walked away, glad to be rid of that problem as he headed back to his ship and crew.

After letting him completely recollect himself, she helped him stand to his feet, letting him cling beside her as she walked past the brothers to go back to the Inn, praying deep down that Seto was okay with their newest companion.


End file.
